147 



to those who had never descended a coal shaft before was, to say 

 the least, novel and perhaps somewhat conducive to an accelerated 

 motion of the pulse, as the cage loaded with its living freight 

 glided rapidly and smoothly through the gloom down 990 feet in 

 about 1|- minute. At the first shoot from the surface the stomach 

 seems to aj^proach uncomfortably near the mouth, afterwards this 

 feeling is succeeded by .a sensation that the cage is rapidly 

 ascending — the instantaneous rush of something past you indicates 

 that half the descent has been accomplished, and that the ascending 

 cage has gone by — a sudden glimmer on one side reveals one or 

 two unearthly looking figures, and you are told that the first 

 gallery has been passed, where the "great vein" is worked — a few 

 seconds more and you are quietly landed on terra firma (if these 

 ever-moving beds can be called by such a name) at the bottom of 

 the shaft, and on a level with the " Bull" vein. The rapidity of 

 the descent of coiirse does not admit of an examination, or even of 

 a glimpse of the strata through which the shaft is sunk, even 

 supposing the brickwork lining admitted it; but the plan had 

 before shown that this pit was sunk through beds of the Lower Lias 

 •with the succeeding Rhoetic measures ; through the new red sand- 

 stone, with a curious band of conglomerate at the base composed 

 of rounded limestone pebbles in a red matrix — ^the size of these 

 pebbles decreasing the further north this formation extends from 

 the Mendip range, until in some places it becomes almost a 

 quartzose sand ; then a band of new red sandstone again — or, aa 

 Mr. McMurtrie was inclined to suppose, of shales stained red by an 

 infiltration of iron ; and then the coal measures proper, which in 

 this part of Somersetshire consist of upper, middle, and lower 

 series, in which are found about thirty- three seams of coal. The 

 upper or Radstock series is divided from the Farringdon or middle 

 by a persistent band of red shale some 240 or 300 feet thick, and 

 the latter series is divided from the lower or Vobster series by a 

 great mass of Pennant rock. It was at the lowest vein of the 

 upper series, called the "Bull" vein, that the members "began 

 their explorations, furnished with lamps and candles ; the latter, 

 stuck in lumps of clay, were inserted in miner fashion between the 

 fingers of the extended palm in such a way that the wick might 



