51 



Of these only three or four are workable to profit. 

 The veins of the second series do not appear to main- 

 tain their distinctive character over the district with the 

 same persistency as those of the first series ; indeed, so 

 different are the sections at different parts of the basin, 

 that it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to co- 

 relate the veins. Generally speaking, however, it consists 

 of six veins, one or more of which are unworkable. The 

 coal produced from it is best adapted for household use, 

 but it is inferior in quality to that produced from the first 

 series. 



The strata of the second series consist, as in the upper 

 one, of alternations of sandstone and shale, in which the 

 latter, however, more decidedly predominates. Next in 

 descending order comes the 



PENNANT ROCK. 



There are few points at which the pennant can be examined 

 in the southern part of the coal-field, and until recently I had 

 an impression that it occupied only a portion of the dis- 

 tance between the upper and lower divisions. But in 

 Gloucestershire, where there are better opportunities of 

 investigating the subject, it clearly forms the entire mass of 

 the rock which separates the two divisions, and the few facts 

 we do know of it in the southern part of the field seem to 

 point to the same conclusion. At Grayfield Colliery, in the 

 parish of Glutton, the Farringdon series rests directly upon 

 the pennant, if its under vein may not be said to be in it ; 

 and in the parish of Downside the New Rock pit, before 

 reaching the first vein of the lower division, passed through 

 some 400 or 500 feet of a hard, gritty sandstone, which I 

 believe can have been no other than the under part of the 

 pennant. In the section exhibited I have showii the pennant 

 immediately under the lowest of the Farringdon veins, 



