VOL. XVI. (2) EXCURSION—NEWENT, CLIFFORD’S MESNE 105 
The Carboniferous Limestone and a great thickness of Coal- 
Measures are found in the Forest of Dean coal-basin. While there 
appears to be attenuation of the Carboniferous Limestone from south 
to north, from the Bristol Coalfield to the northern limits of the Forest 
basin, are we to interpret the evidence of Coal-Measures resting 
upon Old Red Sandstone at Oxenhall as pointing to this neighbour- 
hood having been dry land while the limestone was being deposited in 
the Forest of Dean, Bristol area, and certain other parts? My answer 
is, that in many Midland localities, and in the neighbourhood of 
the Abberley Hills (as shown by Professor T. T. Groom), the Upper 
Coal-Measures rest directly upon much older rocks, owing, in most 
cases, to what might be aptly termed the “ Hercynian Denudation” 
having removed whatever pre-Upper-Coal-Measure Carboniferous- 
deposits had been laid down there. 
The Forest of Dean Coalfield, with its Carboniferous Limestone, 
Millstone Grit, and Coal-Measures (with their intercalated Pennant 
Grit), dates the basin-like disposition of its deposits from the time of 
the Hercynian folding; the Newent Coalfield, with its absence of 
Carboniferous Limestone, Millstone Grit, and Pennant Grit looks as 
if it were of post-Hercynian date. 
It must be clearly understood that these remarks are intended 
rather as a working hypothesis, based upon the scanty surface- 
indications of the structure of the district, and the imperfect records 
of shafts long-since abandoned, than matured conclusions derived 
from the collation and co-ordination of a vast number of indisputable 
facts. 
Newent is built upon the Waterstones of the Keuper. Between 
a quarter and a half of a mile to the east of the town, the Geological 
Survey-Map (Sheet 43, N.E.) represents a fault letting down the sub- 
division above the Keuper Waterstones, namely, the Keuper Marls, 
into juxtaposition with the Waterstones. The map to the south 
does not show a continuation of this fault-line. The matter, there- 
fore, requires attention, but in any case it is improbable that the 
‘throw ” is great. At distances varying from a mile and a quarter 
to a mile and a half west of the town, the Coal-Measures come to the 
surface along a narrow tract, and are bounded on the east by the 
Keuper Waterstones, and on the west by the Old Red Sandstone. 
About a mile south-west of Newent, at Boulsdon, they occur at the 
surface over an area about half a square mile in extent. Here they 
have been worked along their outcrop. Reasoning along the usual 
lines, there can be little doubt that the Coal-Measures extend east- 
wards, from their line of outcrop, under Newent; and west of 
the boundary between the Keuper Waterstones and Marls may have 
a subterranean extent of at least six square miles. 
Murchison has given some details of the pits, but even when the 
“¢ Silurian System” was published in 1839 they had been abandoned 
*¢ many years.” 
At Lower House the pits were fifty yards deep, commencing in 
-the Waterstones. The Coal-Measures dipped at an angle of about 
