438 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1 76O. 



were thrown down, while the walls of numbers of the houses were rent. Many 

 other towns suffered more or less. 



LIII. Remarks on the Bovey Coal. By Jeremiah Mills* D.D., F. R.S. p. 534. 



The Devonshire fossil is commonly known by the name of the Bovey coal. It 

 is found on a common surrounded with hills, called Bovey Heathfield, in the 

 parish of South-bovey, 13 miles south-west of Exeter, and 3 miles west of Chud- 

 leigh. The uppermost of these strata rises within a foot of the surface, under a 

 sharp white sand, intermixed with an ash-coloured clay, and underlies to the 

 south about 20 inches in a fathom. The perpendicular thickness of these strata 

 including the beds of clay with which they are intermixed, is about 70 feet. 

 There are about 6 of each, and they are found to continue eastward, in an un- 

 interrupted course, to the village of Little Bovey, a mile distant, and probably 

 extend much farther. The strata of coal near the surface are from 1 8 inches to 

 4 feet thick, and are separated by beds of a brownish clay, nearly of the same 

 dimensions, but diminishing in thickness downwards in proportion as the strata 

 of coal grew larger; and both are observed to be of a more compact and solid 

 substance in the lower beds. The lowermost stratum of coal is 16 feet thick; 

 it lies on a bed of clay, under which is a sharp green sand, not unlike sea sand, 

 17 feet thick, and under that a bed of hard close clay, into which they bored, 

 but found no coal. From the sand arises a spring of clear blue water, which the 

 miners call mundic water, and a moisture of the same kind trickling through the 

 crevices of the coal tinges the outside of it with a blue cast. 



Some small and narrow veins of coal are found intermixed with, and shooting 

 through the beds of clay, forming impressions like reeds and grass, and very 

 similar to those generally found on the top of coal-mines. The clay also (at 

 least that part of it which lies nearest to the coal) seems to partake of its nature, 

 having somewhat of a laminous texture, and being in a small degree inflam- 

 mable; and among this clay, but adhering to the veins of coal, are found lumps 

 of a bright yellow loam, extremely light, and so saturated with petroleum, that 

 they burn like sealing wax, emitting a very agreeable and aromatic scent. 



Though the substance and quality of this coal, in its several strata, are much 



• Dr. Mills was born at High Cleer, in Hampshire, of which place his father was minister, in 

 1713, and he died in 1784 ; consequently at 7 1 years of age. Dr. M. was esteemed a very learned 

 divine and antiquary. He succeeded Dr. Lyttleton as dean of Exeter, and also as president of the 

 Society of Antiquaries, to whose Archaeologia he was a great contributor. Dr. Mills was a realous 

 champion for the genuineness of the Rowley poems, of which he printed an edition in 4to, with 

 glossarial annotations ; which laid him open to the attacks of the critics, who were sceptical on those 

 supposed relics of antiquity. 



