Pr. Fitton's Notes on the Histoi-y of English Geolugy. 1 5 7 



The opinion of Stukeley as to the effect of the rotation of 

 the earth on the position of the strata, was not long after 

 adopted by Mr. Strachey, the author of two valuable papers 

 on part of the Somersetshire coal-district*, which, consider- 

 ing the date of their production, deserve particular attention. 

 The first of these papers gives an account and section (Plate 

 II. fig. 2.) of some coal-mines about ten miles S. W. of Bath ; — 

 detailing the order and composition of the beds, — and noti- 

 cing their highly inclined position, their interruption by ridges 

 (faults) ; — the occurrence above the coal-measures, of free- 

 stone (oolite), lias, and red-marl, in some places to the depth 

 of 12 or I* fathoms : but, it is added, while the coal beds of the 

 country all dip about 22 inches in a fathom, ' the [superior) 



* beds of stone and marl, different from coal, lie all horizontal.^ 



In the second of the papers above referred to, Mr. Strachey 

 states, that as he had ' never heard any coal was found to the 



* west or south of Mendip-hills ; so Cotswold to the N.E., and 



* the chalk hills of Marlbury Downs and Salisbury Plain, seem 



* to set bounds to the coal country;' and in a section which ac- 

 companies this paper, he places the chalk horizontally above 

 the lias, red marl, &c. and, like those strata, unconformably 

 to the coal beds. 



At the close of these descriptions the author extends his 

 views, and having ' drawn,' as he tells us, ' the different 



* strata (which have come to my observation) on a supposed 

 ' plane, as they there lie ; I protract the same in a globular 

 ' projection, (see Plate I. fig. 2, A and B.) supposing the mass 

 ' of the terraqueous globe to consist of the foregoing or per- 

 ' haps of ten thousand other different minerals, all originally, 

 ^whilst in a soft or fuid state, tending tuisards the centre ; it 



* must mechanically, and almost necessarily, follow, by the 

 ^ continual revolution of the crude mass from west to east, like 

 ' the winding up of a jack, or rolling up the leaves of a paper 

 ' book, that every one of these strata (though they each reach 

 ' the centre,) must in some place or other, appear to the day, 



* in which case there needs no specific gravitation to cause the 



* lightest to be uppermost, &c. for every one in its turn, in 



* some place of the globe or other, will appear near the surface ; 

 ^ oud were it practicable to sink a pit to the centre of the earth, 

 ' till the strata that are would be found in that pit, and accord- 

 ' ing to the poet, pondcribus librata suis.' 



* Phil. Trans. 1719, vol. xxx. p. 968 ; 1725, xxxi. p. .'{9.5 : published also 

 in a separate tract, entitled ' Obscrvatiom on the different Strata of F.arlhs 



* and Minerals, more particularly such as are found in tlw (.'nal-mine.i ofCreat 

 ' Britain,' hy .John Strachey, Km|. London, I 7~'.'*, 4to, p. 16. Kig. 2 of the 

 »iiuexc(l I'late is copied (roui this tract, and difftrs a little from that in 

 the Phil. Trans. 



