386 Geology at the British Association. 
this bed were found for the first time in the English Trias, 
examples of the foliage and scales of the female cone of a 
Voltzia. Estheria minuta occurs in both shales and sandstones. 
The beds are similar to the Skerry-belts of Nottinghamshire and 
Leicestershire which were due to floods of fresh water, but in the 
bone beds there is evidence of littoral conditions. This was 
not a pre-Rhaetic incursion of the sea, but a littoral facies 
of the Keuper marls, formed where the water was at times 
sufficiently fresh to support a small fish fauna, and in sufficient 
motion to move coarse sediments. 
Mr. Fred G. Machen’s survey of the development of 
the Midland coalfields showed that in 1836 nearly all the mines 
were shallow, and produced fifteen thousand tons a year, but 
now the output was fifteen million tons. The output would 
have been greater had the deeper mines proved more re- 
munerative, the shallow mines ruling the selling prices. The 
discovery of concealed coalfields had enlarged the workable 
area from one hundred and twenty to seven hundred and 
sixty-six square miles. It is believed that the area between 
the South Staffordshire and Leicester-Warwick coalfields will 
be found to be one continuous coalfield. Vigorous investiga- 
tions which have been made in the area between the Stafford- 
shire and Shropshire coalfields show that this area is going 
to prove rich in coals of good quality. Little had been done 
to extend the Shropshire coalfield on the western side, but 
in the Highley and Kinlet and Billingsley area it is most 
probable that future deeper sinkings will prove coals beneath 
the two seams at present working, while the area to the east 
is full of promise. 
Mr. Robert D. Vernon gave details of the correlation of the 
Leicestershire with the neighbouring coalfields. The general 
sequence resembles that of Derbyshire, but the presence of un- 
usually thick seams of coal which split towards the north favours 
a comparison of the Middle Coal-measures of Leicestershire with 
those of Warwickshire. In the complete absence of the Transition 
series and Upper Coal-measures, and the presence of a complex 
fault system, the Leicestershire coalfield stands quite apart 
from either of its neighbours. Detailed correlation from the 
physical side being impossible, the problem was attacked 
from the paleontological side. Fossil plants proved of rela- 
tively little value, because the lowest and highest plant- 
bearing horizons both appear to fall within the Middle Coal- 
measures. The freshwater lamellibranchiata were equally un- 
satisfactory, so that search was made for marine beds. The 
Ashby area yielded no fossils, and so the age of its beds remains 
an open question. The Cole Orton area is mostly a concealed 
coalfield worked beneath a Trias cover. The western or Moira 
area shows a more complete sequence and exposures are more 
Naturalist, 
