TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION C, " =73e 
the rich and valuable coalfields of Somersetshire on the west, and of Fratice and 
Belgium on the east. This discovery is of great practical value, as it will probably 
result in the same development in Kent of industries and manufactures which has 
taken place where the coal has been worked, under the same conditions, under the 
Cretaceous and Jurassic rocks in France and Belgium. It is of equally great 
theoretical value, as it proves up to the hilt the truth of Godwin-Austen’s view, 
ublished in 1858, that the coal measures lie buried underneath the newer rocks in 
South-eastern England. 
After the boring was completed in 1898 the discovery lay dormant until in 
1897 the Kent Collieries Corporation began to sink shafts on the site of the boring, 
and to put down boreholes at Brabourne and Pluckley, in the Weald of Kent, to 
verify the range of the coal measures in the property which they held under lease. 
The Mid-Kent Coal Syndicate also put down a boring at Penshurst, and the 
Kent Coal Exploration Company began work in various parts of eastern Kent. 
The borings of the two latter undertakings have been carried on under my super- 
vision, and none of them, as yet, is completed. They, nevertheless, throw 
important light on the range of the coal measures in South-eastern England, and 
are not unworthy of being brought before this meeting of the British Association, 
The first boring to be noticed is at Ropersole, a spot near the highway between 
Dover and Canterbury—eight miles from Dover, at 400 feet above O.D.—the 
surface being composed of Upper Chalk, witha thin stratum of Clay-with-Flints. It 
was begun at the close of 1897, and has at the present time pierced the strata to 
a depth of 1,773 feet 7 inches. 
It is being carried out under the able superinténdence of Mr. James Newton, 
resident engineer, with the calyx drill, with the occasional use of a diamond 
crown for the lower and harder rocks. The result in both cases is a solid core. 
The section is as follows: 
Ropersole, 400 O.D. 
— Thickness Below Orang 
feet in feet in 
Upper Cretaceous : : : , 4 953 0 553 (OO 
Upper Chalk, ; : A : ; 480 0 80 0O 
Middle Chalk . : i ; : : See O 198 0 
Lower Grey Chalk . : : P . 220 0 418 0 
Glauconitic Marl . : ; F : 16 0 434 0 
Gault - ‘ “ 6 5 ; 5 1190 OO 553 OO 
Neocomian 5 A bj : 3 72 O 625 O 
LowerGreensand . 5 é ‘ 5 bly 0 604 0 
Atherfield Clay 5 5 s : ; 21 O 625 0 
Purbeck-Wealden Beds . : é ; 55) 10 680 0 
Oolitie é : ‘ ‘ ‘ A ; 472 0 1,152 Oo 
Kimmeridge Clay (?) : : : : 10 O 690 0 
Corallian . - 2 : 5 : : 1 847 =O 
Oxfordian, Callovian ‘ = B 4 142 O 989 0 
Bathonian - 5 : : 5 : 164 O iiss - 0 
Liassic ; A ; : : A 5 27° 9 1,180 9 
Upper Lias (?) - A . : S ; Sy ll, SG 0) 
Middle Lias é ( ¢ : : 24 9 LL8O,. 9 
Coal Measures. . < Z F e 192 10 aang 
Shales and Underclays  . . - ; 69 3 | 1,250 0 
First Coal . : ‘ 5 F F F (0). BRS) L250 /8e9 
Shales and Underclays  . : : . 50 6 1,301 3 
Second Coal . é E : z Rial 0 6 1,301 9 
Shales and Underclays . : : : 22 3 1,324 . 0 
Micaceous Sandstones  . 3 ' 3 ZG alee 13h tnt . 
Re SE eek ee 
