A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



The chief coal seams of the Oldham area * are about ten in number. The most valuable and 

 the one which has been most worked is the Black Mine, averaging four feet in thickness. Another 

 seam of considerable importance is the ' New Mine ' of the Ashton-under-Lyne district, which lies 

 below the Black Mine, and about 100 yards above the Royley or Arley seam. It may be 



Suivalent to the Neddy Mine of Oldham, or one of the thin seams below it. The Lower Bent 

 ine or Peacock coal is of good quality and much used. 



The ' Great Mine ' of Oldham yields over 8 feet of coal, but at Ashton-under-Lyne it 

 includes dirt bands. 



Higher in the series than any given in Professor Hull's list are the Great and Roger Mines of 

 Ashton-under-Lyne and Dukinfield. The former is 6 feet thick, the latter 4 feet, and the 

 interval is but 32 yards. 



Still higher in the series, and at some 400 to 500 yards above the Great Mine, is the Yard 

 Mine of Moston, which is supposed to represent the Bradford Four-Feet. 



Nowhere in this area is the whole of the Middle series present from summit to base, unless it 

 be to the south of Dukinfield and at Moston. 



Between the Great and Yard Mines at Dukinfield is a coal seam about eighteen inches in 

 thickness, the shale roof being rich in fossils, and containing ironstone balls very similar to those 

 over the Upper Foot of the Lower Coal Measures. This horizon is exposed in the banks of the 

 river Tame, near the bend west of Dunkirk Colliery, and was also cut through in sinking the shaft 

 of the Ashton Moss colliery. The remarkable feature of this horizon is that it has yielded 

 Goniatites, Pterinopecten, &c. The late J. W. Salter regarded the fauna of this horizon as 

 comparable to that of the Lower Coal Measures of Shropshire, and as markedly different from that 

 of the Lancashire Lower Coal Measures. This can now hardly be said to be correct, as the 

 observations of the writer have shown that the ' Marine Band,' as it is often called, has yielded 

 several species of fossils characteristic of the latter. The fauna of the Marine Band most 

 closely approximates that of the Upper Foot or Bullion and Mountain Four-Feet Mines, and the 

 differences are probably those naturally due to a later development. 



(B) BOLTON AND BURY AREA 



In this area the Middle Coal Measures reach fully a thousand yards in thickness, and scarcely 

 any portion remains untouched, mining being particularly active. 



The best generalised section of it is that of Professor Hull, curtailed from a much more 

 detailed section published by J. Dickinson, Esq., late Chief Inspector of Mines. 



GENERALISED SECTION BETWEEN MANCHESTER AND BOLTON 



(Slightly modified from Hull's Coalfields of Great Britain, 1881, pp. 2O2, 203.) 



Fourteen seams are worked, yielding nominally about sixty feet of coal, but from this must be 

 deducted the thickness of shale partings, bass, and dirt bands, which frequently occur. The lowest 

 bed of the series is the Arley Mine. 



1 It must not be forgotten that the Oldham Middle Coal Measures are flanked to the north and east by 

 ground in which coals of the Lower Series are extensively mined. 



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