Mr. Forster on the Probability of Jinding Coal near Leicester. Si? 



They are in a cement of minute white quartzy grains. It oc- 

 cupies a low clifF, and is finer at the top than below, and very 

 white. A few yards behind this is another shelf, but it is of 

 very white and fine sandstone. 



[To be continued.] 



LI. Extract from a Report made on the 29th of September 

 1827, on the Probability of finding Coal near Leicester. By 

 Mr. Francis Forster, Mineral, Surveyor, and Assay er of 

 Coal and Iron Ore. 



[With a Map.] 



To the Editors of the Philosophical Magazine and Annals. 

 Gentlemen, 

 TN September 1827, at the request of a person connected 

 ■^ with coal and other mines, I made, with the assistance of my 

 brother, Mr. M. Forster, a survey of the country surrounding 

 Leicester, with a view to ascertain the probability of the ex- 

 istence of coal near that town. As circumstances have since 

 occurred, which leave me at liberty to publish this Report, 

 and as the opinions therein contained have also been in a 

 great measure confirmed by the subsequent discovery of a 

 seam of coal by boring near Bagworth (as announced in the 

 New Monthly Magazine for July 1828, and noticed in the 

 Phil. Mag. and Annals for March last), — I have been induced 

 to offer an extract for publication in your valuable Magazine. 

 Should you do me the favour to insert it, I trust that it may 

 be found to contain hints interesting to the geologist ; and I 

 feel confident that they cannot fail to prove so to every one 

 interested in the prosperity of Leicester. 



I remain. Gentlemen, your obedient servant, 

 113, Aldersgate-street, London, FranCIS Forster. 



Feb. 26, 1829. 



On examining the strata in the vicinity of Leicester, it was 

 found to consist of new red sandstone or marl, laying in 

 nearly horizontal beds, and so completely covering over and 

 concealing the measures beneath it, that it was found imprac- 

 ticable to trace the basset or outbreak of any of the subjacent 

 strata, until I reached the transition rocks of Charnwood 

 Forest, between which, and the new red sandstone, I was 

 aware that the coal-beds must be found, provided they existed 

 at all. My next stej>, therefore, was to examine very carefully 

 the junction of the sandstone and transition formations, with a 

 view to ascertain whether any coalrbeds, or rocks connected 

 therewith, made their appearance, as underlaying the sand- 

 stone, at the precise points where the latter basscted or crop- 

 2 Y 2 ped 



