vii. COAL DEPOSITS. 85 



COAL MEASURES. 



The coal measures appear near Bath, in Kingswood, at several 

 points near Newent, in a mere line on the Abberley range of 

 hills, and in a patch west of those hills. Some of the finest fossil 

 plants in the Oxford Museum come from the Camerton pits in the 

 Somersetshire coal tract ; others of equal interest from the Forest 

 of Dean. The coal band in the Abberley Hills is placed between 

 the Permian or else new red conglomerates and the old red marl 

 series. It is in reality conformed to neither, nor, as in the more 

 frequent exposures of coal between the old and new red near Newent, 

 is there any semblance of conformity to the older deposit. It is 

 of no commercial value ; nor is the value considerable of the small 

 tract of coal, lying on old red, north of the Abberley Hills. 



The occurrence of the coal with its attendant clay under these 

 conditions, leaves no doubt of the fact that, at some time after 

 the completion of the old red deposits, a great change took place 

 in the sea-bed ; great disturbances elevated and bent the Silurian 

 and old red strata ; and long watery action levelled the outcropping 

 edges of these strata. On such worn surfaces the coal was de- 

 posited ; the vegetable masses, to judge from their irregularity, 

 were probably drifted, but not drifted far, or into deep water. No 

 plants of interest have been collected from it. There was extensive 

 land near, if not on the very range of the Malvern and Abberley 

 Hills, and further north, toward Wire Forest and Shrewsbury, 

 and further south, toward Newenfc and Kingswood. Thus we have 

 evidence of another disturbance, accompanied by elevation of the 

 old sea-bed of the Malvern area, at least in part, above the level 

 of the sea. 



These small patches of aggregated plants converted to coal, which 

 lie on the old red sandstone, are they to be regarded as mere ruins 

 of a larger deposit once collected in a great tract, chiefly on the 

 western side of the axis of the Malvern movements, though now 

 broken piecemeal by subsequent denudation ? If so, the denuda- 

 tion happened probably before the Permian and new red sandstone 

 period. In favour of this view, it may be said that there is some 

 ground for regarding all the detached patches as belonging to the 

 same geological horizon as the poor coal-beds of Wire Forest, 



