A HISTORY OF WORCESTERSHIRE 



to a depth of 1,200 feet with unsatisfactory results : salt water filled the 

 bore-hole. Another boring at Arley Colliery, near Bewdley, was carried 

 to a depth of 1,350 feet, and then reached a basaltic rock like that of 

 Shatterford.' 



Sections of the sandstones and shales are exposed on the banks of 

 the Severn between Bewdley and Upper Arley. At Shatterford the 

 basalt dyke is quarried for road-metal, while some of the sandstones 

 furnish good building-stone. 



Attention was first called by E, W. Binney to the occurrence of 

 %ror(^/j-limestone : this comprises thin grey, black and brown lime- 

 stones, which contain the Annelide Spirorhis pusillus. 



In the sandstones, and more particularly in the shales, remains of 

 ferns, also Stigmaria, Calamites, and fish-remains occur. 



Exposures of Upper Coal Measures occur on either side of Rubery 

 Hill in the Lower Lickey, resting on the Cambrian quartzite and Silu- 

 rian rocks, but they are not of particular economic importance. In this 

 region strata of the age of the Coal Measures probably occur over a 

 larger area than is shown on the map, as certain so-called Permian strata, 

 are now recognized as Coal Measures.^ 



Portions of the South Staffordshire coalfield, the ' Black Country,' 

 occur in the county of Worcester, between Dudley, Halesowen and 

 Stourbridge. Here the general sub-divisions are thus noted by Prof 

 Lapworth :^ — 



( Red and grey shales and sandstones with 'n Feet. 



Upper J S/i/V«r^if-limestone . . . . ( ^ 



Coal Measures J Halesowen Sandstones . . . '' ' 



Red clays with sandstone and conglomerate 

 Lower f Grey and white sandstones, clays, shales, 



Coal Measures (. and beds of coal and ironstone 



:} 



500 to 1,050 



Of special interest is the great Ten-yard seam or Thick coal, which 

 in the southern part of the coalfield is made up of about fourteen seams 

 of coal, elsewhere parted by unproductive strata, and attaining 500 or 

 600 feet in total thickness. 



Some dykes and sills of igneous rock (dolerite) occur in the Coal 

 Measures near Dudley, as at Rowley Regis, but these are rather outside 

 the boundaries of the county. 



In this important coalfield, as in the case of the Forest of Wyre, the 

 Coal Measures rest in part directly on Old Red Sandstone, and in part 

 on the Silurian rocks. Prior to the general disturbance of the strata and 

 the production of the anticline of Dudley, the Coal Measures rested in 

 places on the tilted and worn surface of the Silurian, and, as remarked by 



' See D. Jones, Trans. Manchester Geol. Soc., vol. x. p. 37 ; Geol. Mag. for 1 87 1, p. 

 200, for 1873, p. 350 ; and Trans. Fed. Inst. Mining Eng., vol. vii. p. 287 ; G. E. Roberts, 

 Geologist, vol. iv. pp. 421, 468 ; T. C. Cantrill, ' Geol. Wyre Forest,' »/>. cit., and Co//. Guard., 

 vol. Ixxi. (1896) p. 351 ; Symonds, Records of the Rocks, p. 385. 



^ See W. Gibson in Summary of Progress of Geo/ogica/ Survey for 1898, p. 124. 



^ Proc. Geo/. Assoc, vol. xv. p. 366 ; see also J. B. Jukes, 'The South Staffordshire Coal- 

 field,' Mem. Geo/. Survey, ed. 2, 1859. 



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