PAPER 



ON THE 



PAULTS and COUTOUTIONS of the SOMEESETSHIEE 

 COAL EIELD, 



ST 



J. MCMURTRIE, RADSTOCK. 



(Read February 2ith, 1869.) 



At one of the Evening Meetings during last winter, I had the 

 pleasure of submitting to the Members of this Society a 

 general and typical section of the Somersetshire Coal Field. 

 It was my intention to have supplemented that paper by 

 another, treating of the geographical distribution of the 

 diflferent veins and sub-divisions of the formation ; but 

 circumstances having induced me to postpone this, I would 

 instead direct attention to another branch of the same subject, 

 viz., the faults and contortions through the agency of which 

 the coal field has assumed its present form. As the question 

 of faults generally has probably been often under considera- 

 tion, it is, I presume, unnecessary that it should now be 

 treated in an elementary way ; and I propose, therefore, to 

 describe only the distinctive characteristics of those of our 

 own neighbourhood, which it will be found opens out a 

 sufficiently wide field. 



