62 REPORT — 1866. 



know, thanks to the spirit and energy of the late Duke of Newcastle, that at Shire 

 Oaks good seams of coal, the prolongation of the Sheffield field, are worked to 

 profit. But the most important phenomenon of all others to the inhabitants of 

 Nottingham is, that in the tract between Mansfield and tliat town, the coal -strata 

 of Derbyshire, rich as they are, become thicker and richer as they dip to the east 

 mider the maguesian limestone. When visiting Mr. William Webb, at Newstead 

 Abbey, in the year 1863, I had sincere pleasure in annomiciug this important fact 

 in a lecture which I gave in the Mechanics' Institution at Mansfield, inasmuch as 

 the realization of it rendered the properties of my friend and his neighbours much 

 more valuable. The coal-pits which have almost been sunk along their lands near 

 Hucknall and other places, are satisfactory proofs of the 'certainty of now finding 

 excellent coal, superior, indeed, in quality and in dimensions to most of the coal- 

 beds of Derbyshire, in position and in tracts where no one, even a few years ago, 

 except geologists, thought of their existence. Indeed it is possible that at some 

 distant day, and when the more easily attainable coals are exhausted under the 

 magnesian limestone, the mineral will be worked under the new red sandstone 

 to the north of Nottingham, though at depths which at present would render such 

 operations nnremunerative. 



But whilst I thus advert to portions of Nottinghamshire as included in those 

 British areas in which future supplies of coal will in all probability be obtained by 

 sinking deep through overlying deposits, it forms no part of this communication to 

 dwell upon this point, — still less to treat of the known coal-fields, Avhether they be 

 basins subtended by old red and moimtain limestone, as in South Wales or the 

 Forest of Dean, or upcasts through the Permian and new red sandstones of the 

 central counties. These subjects, which have already been ably handled by Mr. 

 Hull, one of my associates in the Geological Survey, and whose work, as Avell as 

 that of Mr. Jevous, has excited great public interest in reference to tlie duration 

 of British coal, will, I know, be well inquired into by the Royal Coal Commis- 

 .sion. My sole object is to exclude from the reasoning npon the English coal-fields, 

 whether near the sm-face, or attainable through overlying rocks, those hypotheses 

 which, however ingenious in theory, are, in my opinion negatived by fair reasoning 

 on the data we possess. Thus, when we exclude, as of necessity, 21,800 square 

 miles, or nearly one-half of England and Whales, as consisting of rocks older than 

 the coal-measures, and in which no coal can possibly be found ; and when I 

 have further shown strong a priori reasons for setting aside the hypothesis that 

 productive coal-fields ma}' exist under our southern and eastern counties, we have 

 fii'st to proceed to form the best approximate estimate we can of the amount of 

 coal left in those fields which have been long worked. Next to endeavom- to 

 ascertain what is the prospect of a profitable extraction of coal from deep-seated 

 beds, by reaching them at certain depths beneath the superjacent Permian, or other 

 overlviug deposits, through which they have been upheaved to constitute the coal- 

 fields' of the Midland Counties. Such will be the objects of the Royal Coal Com- 

 mission recently appointed ; and on which I am as yet imable to give any reliable 

 opinion. 



By excluding from the incpiry into the present or probable future coal supply of 

 England and Wales, all the tracts of crj'stalliue and palaeozoic rocks which rise out 

 from beneath the carboniferous strata, and in which no trace of coal can ever be 

 discovered, and also all those secondary and tertiary rocks beneath which, for the 

 reasons given, there can be scarcely anj^ hope of finding that mineral, it will be seen 

 that the existing and possibly future supplies have, for all practical purposes, an 

 approximately defined limit, and that they range over little more than one-eighth 

 of England and Wales, or an area of about GOOO square miles. 



Declining to express any opinion as to tlie duration of the accessible coal-beds in 

 Britain mi til a closer survey shall have been completed, I fully appreciate the 

 anxious desire which is felt by all persons who are interested in the future welfare 

 of their country, to have the subject fully and fairly inquired into ; the more so as 

 I have now in conclusion to announce that, by the last inquiry made by Mr. 

 Robert Hunt, the indefatigable compiler of the Mining Records in the Govern- 

 ment establishment under my direction, the last year's consumption of coal reached 

 the portentous figiu'o of nearly one hundred millions of tons. Most judiciously, 



