402 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1719. 



is mostly a red soil, which, under the first or second spit, degenerates into 

 malm or loom, and often yields a rock of reddish firestone, till you come to 

 4, 5, and often to 12 or 14 fathom depth, when it changes gradually to a grey, 

 then to a dark or blackish rock, which they call the coal clives. These always 

 lie shelving and regular as the coal does. But in these parts they never meet 

 with firestone over the coal, as at Newcastle and in Staffordshire. These clives 

 vary much in hardness, in some places being little harder than malm or loom, 

 in others so hard that they split them with gunpowder: so likewise they vary in 

 colour, the top inclining to red or grey, but the nearer to coal the blacker they 

 grow ; and wherever they are met with, coal is sure to be found under them, 

 though not always worth the digging. 



The first or uppermost vein, at Sutton, is called the stinking vein. It is 

 hard coal, fit for mechanic uses, but of a sulphureous smell. From 54 fathom, 

 to 7 fathom under this, lies another vein, which from certain lumps of stone 

 mixed with it, like a caput mortuum, not inflammable, called catshead, they 

 call the cathead vein. About the same depth under this again, lies the three 

 coal vein, so called, because it is divided into 3 different coals; between the first 

 and second coal is a stone of a foot, in some places 2 feet thick; but the middle 

 and third coal seem placed loose on each other, without being separated by a 

 different matter. These 3 veins are sometimes worked in the same pit: but the 

 next vein is generally wrought in a separate pit; for though it lies the like depth 

 under the other, the cliff between them is hard and subject to water : I have 

 therefore represented a pit sunk through the 3 upper veins at a, and another 

 sunk on the three coal veins only at b. So if they sink on any of the lower 

 veins, they go more to the north-west. 



Next under the three coal veins is the peaw vein, so denominated because 

 the coal is figured with eyes resembling a peacock's tail, gilt with gold, which 

 bird, in this country dialect, is called a peaw. The cliff over this vein is 

 variegated with cockle-shells and fern branches ; and this is always an indication 

 of this vein, which, as before hinted, is always searched for about 15 fathom to 

 the north-west of the former. 



Under this again, between 5 and 6 fathom, lies the Smiths' coal vein, about 

 a yard thick; and near the same depth under that again, the shelly vein: 

 and under that a vein of JO inches thick, which being little valued, has not 

 been wrought to any purpose. 



Some say there is also another under the last, but that has not been proved 

 within the memory of man. At Faringdon they have the same veins, which 

 agree in all respects with those of Bishop-Sutton. But as Faringdon lies 4 

 miles south-east from Bishop-Sutton, so, in the regular course, they would lie 



