The North Stafford Coalfield. 283 



of the Derbyshire Hills, and off which newer Carboniferous rocks 

 continue to succeed each other, until on its eastern flanks in 

 Derbyshire and on its western flanks in Staffordshire the Coal- 

 measures of the respective coalfields crop out, is in reality made 

 up of several lesser anticlinals consisting in modern technical 

 language of an ' anticlinorium.' It is within the troughs between 

 these saddles that the Coal-measures constituting the Cheadle, 

 Shaffalong, and Pottery Coalfields, and the smaller basin of Goldsitch 

 Moss have been preserved. Moreover, the shape of the fold has 

 determined that of the coalfields. Thus the Cheadle Coalfield is 

 somewhat oval in shape ; that of Shaffalong long and narrow ; 

 while the Pottery Coalfield is of a triangular form, owing to the 

 fold contracting rapidly in the north and widening out in the south. 

 To this basin there succeeds on the west side of the coalfield 

 a conspicuous anticline composed of Coal-measures in the south and 

 of Lower Carboniferous rocks in the northern part of the district. 



The area, especially the Pottery Coalfield, has been further 

 complicated by numerous dislocations, frequently of very great 

 magnitude, which, it will be observed, do not affect the overlying 

 Triassic rocks to anything like the same extent. These disturbances 

 consist, on the east side of the Pottery Coalfield, of a belt of highly 

 inclined strata, bordering the coalfield, and ending at Hulme in 

 a series of fractures which depress the Coal-measures over 200 yards 

 to the east ; in the central portion of the coalfield the Apedale Fault, 

 which at one spot attains the magnitude of over 600 yards, plays 

 a still more important part in the coal-mining industry of the 

 district by introducing a broad belt of barren measures beneath 

 which coal-seams lie at considerable depths ; while on the western 

 side a fault of even greater magnitude extends along the whole 

 length of the district, and for the present forms the limit of all coal 

 workings in this direction. 



Between the closing of the Carboniferous and the opening of the 

 next geological epoch — the Trias — a vast interval of time elapsed, of 

 which the extent will be realised when it is stated that the major 

 part of the folding and faulting took place before the newer 

 formation was laid down. In addition, huge masses of Carboniferous 

 strata were removed ; and it is on the denuded edges of these 

 frequently highly inclined rocks, or in the deep hollows worn into 

 them, that the Bed Rocks of the Trias resting indiscriminately on 

 the older formation were almost horizontally deposited. Such is the 

 disposition of the Eed Eocks on the eastern and southern margins of 

 Pottery Coalfield ; but on the west the junction of the two systems is, 

 for the most part, a clearly defined line determined by the fault 

 previously mentioned. Space precludes our giving a longer notice, 

 but we cannot pass by this memoir without expressing our pleasure 

 at the progress of the work of the Survey in the last decade, and the 

 great improvement which has taken place in the style of the later 

 publications, and especially in the quality of the plates and illus- 

 trations which accompany the text in the present excellent memoir, 

 the price of which is fixed at six shillings. 



