[ '^IS ] 



Besides this general defcent or afcent, the feams are in fome 

 places abruptly broken off by a bed of ftone or other matter of 

 a confiderable thicknefs, betwixt the coal and which there is 

 generally a cavity or hollow called at Whitehaven a Gut. When 

 a feam of coal is thus interrupted by the interpofition of other 

 matter the workmen know that they will find the fame feam 

 either above or below this place, or, as they term it, they know 

 that tlie feam is thrown cither upward or dovv^nward. In order 

 to know whether the feam of coal will be found above or be- 

 low, they endeavour to difcover which way the ftone or other 

 feparating matter liangs or Hopes. If it recedes from the coal, 

 floping ever fo little upwards, they conclude that the feam of 

 coal is thrown upwards (as they call it), that is, in fuch a cafe 

 the feam is always fotind above the break. If the flope be 

 hanging over the coals, floping towards the furface, then the 

 feam of coal is faid to be thrown downwards, and is found be- 

 low the break. The real fad is, that in fome former time there 

 has been fome great convulfion of the earth, in which all the 

 fuperincumbent covering matter, confifting of feams or beds of 

 flone, coals or other materials, have been moved upwards in all 

 fuch chafms or breaks, leaving the feam or bed of coal below, 

 in one part, where it was at the time the dreadful convulfive mo- 

 tion happened. Hanging over and floping upwards or down- 

 wards are only relative terms, depending upon which fide of the 

 interpofed matter you arrive at. Where any feam or field coal 

 feems thus to end, the interpofing matter hangs or flopes one 

 way on one fixie of the matter and the contrary on the other 



M m 2 fide, 



