A HISTORY OF KENT 



As regards the history of these coal explorations it will suffice to 

 give references to the already extensive literature of the subject, and 

 to note that so long ago as the year 1856 the opinion that Coal Measures 

 might occur within a workable depth in Kent was clearly stated.^ It 

 was not until 1890 however that this opinion was verified by a deep 

 boring on the site of the Channel Tunnel Works at the base of 

 Shakspere Cliff near Dover/ which reached the Coal Measures at a depth 

 of 1,157 ^^^^ below the surface and passed through ten' coal seams at 

 various depths between 1,180 and 2,221 feet, of thicknesses varying from 

 I foot to 4 feet and giving an aggregate thickness of 22 feet of coal. 

 This discovery led to the sinking of shafts on the same site, and to the 

 commencement of several other borings in different parts of the interior 

 of the county for the purpose of testing the lateral extension of the 

 Coal Measures, the work being carried on entirely by private enterprise. 

 Owing to engineering difficulties and other causes however, in spite of 

 the expenditure of very large sums of money the Dover shafts have not 

 at the time of writing, reached the coal seams ; and only one of the 

 other borings — that at Ropersole, 8 miles north-west of Dover — is known 

 to have entered Carboniferous rocks, while another — at Brabourne, 

 5 miles east of Ashford — has shown that the Coal Measures do not 

 extend to that place. Sooner or later the deep-seated Coal Measures 

 of Kent will no doubt become of economic importance, and the pre- 

 sent aspect of the north-eastern part of the county thereby greatly 

 altered. 



For the nearest places where the Jurassic and older rocks proved 

 in these borings may be seen at the surface, we have to look eastward 

 across the Channel to France, or westward to Somerset and the adjacent 

 western counties. The intermediate sections now obtained in Kent 

 are certain to prove of high scientific value in elucidating the deep- 

 seated geology of the whole of the south-east of England. 



The following are the records of the Kentish borings which 

 have been published up to the present time : — 



> R. A. C. Godwin-Austen, ' On the Probable Extension of the Coal Measures beneath the South- 

 eastern part of England,' Quart. Joum. Geol. Soc. (1856), xii. 38. This author's opinion was fully 

 discussed and acquiesced in by Prof. J. Prestwich in ' Report on the Probabilities of finding Coal in 

 the South of England,' Reports of the Coal Commission (1871), i. 146. The hypothesis was sub- 

 sequently discussed by many other geologists. For critical review of this literature up to the year 

 1 888 consult W. Wliitaker, M^ot. Geol. Survey, 'The Geology of London ' (1889), vol. i. chap. 2, 

 'Underground Plain of Older Rocks,' pp. 10-49 ! ^"'^ ''^ 'Joum. Soc. Arts (1890), xxxviii. 543. 



2 Prof W. Boyd Dawkins, under whose advice the boring was made, has published several papers 

 on the history of this exploration and on the results attained : see Trans. Manchester Geol. Soc. (1890), 

 XX. 502 ; (1892) xxi. 456 ; (1894) xxii. 488 ; ibid. 'History of the Discovery' (1897), xxv. 155 ; 

 Reports British Assoc: Cardiff (1891), 637; Oxford (1894), p. 648; Dover (1899), p. 734; 

 Contemporary Revietv, April, 1890 ; ColRery Guardian, June, 1894, etc. Also for detailed sections of 

 Dover boring, see W. Boyd Dawkins in third paper above cited ; and joint paper by F. Brady, G. P. 

 Simpson and N. R. Griffith, 'The Kent Coalfield,' Trans. Fed. Inst. Mining Eng. (1895-6), xi. 540 ; 

 and for later general discussion of the subject, R. Etheridge, ' On the Relation between the Dover 

 and Franco-Belgian Coal Basins,' Rep. British. Assoc. Dover (1899), p. 730. 



» Or twelve seams ; see Prof. W. B. Dawkins, Rep. British Assoc. Dover (1899), p. 736. 



