8 DR TRAILL ON THE TORBANEHILL MINERAL. 
I descended into No. 2, which was wrought by a small steam-engine. The 
depth of the shaft was 17 fathoms. From the bottom of the shaft, a drift was 
carried for 80 yards, in a northerly direction, with a dip of about 1 in 12, almost 
half-way between No. 1 and No. 3. This working was so low, that we could not 
stand upright ; and the most convenient mode of exploring its termination, or the 
face, as it is technically termed, is to lie at full length in a truck, and to be leisurely 
let down the incline. In descending, the succession of the strata are :— 
1. A thick roof of sandstone. 
2. Faeks, a crumbling shale=4 inches in thickness. This bed in No. 3 is want- 
ing; but it forms the roof in No. 4. ; 
3. Cement, a mixture of shale and a poor ironstone=3 inches. 
4. Bitumenite, which in this pit at the face=1 foot 4 inches in thickness. 
5. Fine Ironstone, from 2 inches to 4 inch. 
6. Bituminous Shale, often containing tabular masses of good ironstone= 
2 inches. 
7. An inferior coal=7 inches. These four last-mentioned beds are all raised 
with the Bitumenite, and together measure 2 feet 3 inches in thickness. 
8. Coal, much mixed with shale, here called foul coal, about 2 feet 4 inches. 
9. Fire-clay. 
These notices will sufficiently shew the position of the Bitumenite, &c., which 
has nothing peculiar in its situation in the earth to distinguish it from any other 
mineral occurring in a coal-field. It seems, however, to be thickest near the top 
of the field, as in No. 4, and to diminish a little in thickness in the other two pits. 
I had the pleasure of visiting Torbanehill with one of the most eminent and 
experienced coal-surveyors of England, Mr Nicnotas Woop, President of the 
North of England Institute of Mining Engineers, and asked him, “If you had 
bored at Torbanehill before the working of the shafts, would you, from what the 
instrument brought up, have said that there was here a workable coal?” He an- 
swered, “ Decidedly not. The 7-inch coal is not workable; and the substance 
you call Bitwmenite I should have considered as a shale.” 
I have compared Bitumenite with a great number of different coals, as with 
common English coal, Wigan cannel, and with several varieties of Scottish coals, 
as— 
. Lord Stair’s cannel or parrot coal, from Oxenford. 
. Marquis of Lothian’s parrot coal. 
. West Wemyss parrot coal. 
. Arniston parrot coal. 
. Methill coal, which, however, approaches more nearly to bituminous shale 
than to common coal, having a nearly dull fracture, though with a strongly 
shining streak unchanged in colour. 
Oo nw re 
of 
