TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION C. 477 
or more in the pit. To-day women are not allowed to work in a mine, and 
no youth under fourteen years, and the hours of labour are restricted by Act of 
Parliament to eight per day. Nearly all the mines worked in 1836 were shallow 
ones, and the output not more than 200 to 300 tons per week. The area of the 
coalfields was about as shown below, as against the present known and concealed 
areas of coal. 
Year S. Staffs Leicester Warwick Salop Total square miles 
1836... eee 70 20 10 20 120 
1913S... wes 360 88 222 96 766 
This last calculation includes the concealed coalfield between Chasetown, 
Aldridge, and West Bromwich on the west, and the Warwickshire and Leices- 
tershire coalfields on the east, and also the concealed coalfield between Cannock, 
Essington, and Stourbridge on the east of the Coalbrookdale and Forest of 
Wyre coalfields on the west. 
The output since figures are available is as follows :— 
Year S. Staffs Leicester Warwick Salop Total in million tons 
1865... Cos 10 1} = 13 Rss 
LSI eaiaee ass Ue oe 43 2 155 
This shows a great advance in industrial conditions and in economic geology, 
but the question of output does not show so great an increase; this I think is 
due not to fear that the concealed coalfields would not be profitable, but to 
the fact that some of the deeper mines have not proved remunerative. This 
is partly due to local conditions in the mines and also to the fact that the 
deeper coal costs more to get than the shallow coal, as regards actual working 
cost and the greatly increased capital needed, whilst the coal from both mines 
is sold in the same market, so that the shallow mine rules the selling price. 
As a few years pass by, and probably before the next meeting of this Associa- 
tion, the shallow mines will be exhausted, and the prices will be ruled by the 
deeper mines, with the usual economic results of increased ‘prices in proportion 
to increased costs to get. 
In the figures above, areas are included which were not thought of in 1836, 
but, as is fully shown by the report of the last Royal Coal Commission, 1905, 
coal will undoubtedly be found in the areas above named. The area between 
the South Staffordshire coalfield and the Leicestershire and Warwickshire 
coalfield will be found to be one continuous coalfield, with its deepest part at 
Lichfield, Sutton Coldfield, and Coleshill, but the basin rising to the south as 
a whole, the thick coal of Sandwell and Hamstead will split up into two or 
three seams, and under these conditions will be worked Longwall, with better 
commercial results. The area between the Staffordshire coalfield and Shrop- 
shire has been most vigorously investigated, and the proofs at Colwich, 
Huntingdon, Essington, Four Ashes and Baggerridge show that this area is 
going to be rich in coals of good quality and laid down under conditions that 
will allow of remunerative working. 
On the Shropshire side very little has been done to extend that coalfield to 
the west of either the Coalbrookdaie or the Forest of Wyre Coalfields, the 
edges of the Old Red Sandstone preclude any hope of extension, but in the 
Highley and Kinlet and Billingsley area it is most probable that future deeper 
sinkings will prove deeper coals than the two seams at present working, whilst 
the area to the east is full of promise. As soon as the Severn Valley fault, 
which is some 300 to 400 yards downthrow east, is crossed a new coalfield will 
be found, and I think the area between here and the old coalfield will be 
divided into two basins, with a Silurian anticline between them as proved by 
the Claverley boring. 
2. On the Fossil Floras of the South Staffordshire Coalfield. 
By i. A. Newert Arser, M.A., Sc.D., F.G.S. 
The rich series of floras of the South Staffordshire coalfield has suffered much 
unfortunate neglect in the past. Several collections have, it is true, been made 
from time to time, but with very few exceptions they have never been described, 
and some of them are without proper records of locality and horizon. For such 
