53 



Although the whole of this belongs to the pennant formation, 

 there are, no doubt, occasional beds of shale, as well as thin 

 veins of coal intermixed with the sandstones. Dr. Buckland 

 mentions four veins as occurring above the Globe vein (which 

 is the highest of the lower division), and these must have 

 been in the pennant ; but they have not been worked within 

 the memory of man, and I apprehend they were of no great 

 value. At Temple Cloud a shaft was sunk many years ago 

 in the pennant, and a vein was met with, but it was not 

 sufficiently profitable to induce the owners to continue work- 

 ing it ; and this, I fear, is the general character of the veins 

 contained in the formation. 



The character and economic uses of the pennant sand- 

 stones being so well known in Bath and the neighbourhood, 

 nothing need be said respecting them here, and we now pass 

 on to the 



LOWER DIVISION. 



In treating of this I have been greatly assisted by a paper 

 by " Buckland and Conybeare," published in the "Transactions 

 of the Geological Society" for 1824. At the time Dr. Buck- 

 land visited the district, the coal mines of the lower division 

 were more generally and extensively worked than they are 

 now, and he was thus enabled to procure and place on record 

 a great deal of valuable information, which would otherwise 

 have been for ever lost. In compiling his paper, he seems to 

 have consulted the best local authorities, and to this he has 

 evidently added a great deal of personal research, so that in 

 matters of fact his statements are generally correct. 



He enumerates in all 87 veins as belonging to the lower 

 part of the coal measures, but from this number must be 

 deducted the four upper veins, which evidently belong to the 

 pennant, leaving 33 as the number contained in the lower 

 division. 



