Our Coalfields: Present and Futwre Prospects. 555 
A problem of perhaps wider geological interest than that of the 
Kent Coalfield, and certainly of greater complexity, and containing 
the possibility of an even richer economic harvest, is the occurrence 
of buried Coal-measures under the great sheet of red rocks between 
the Midland coalfields, and under newer beds in the area to the south 
and east of them, towards London. 
For the ultimate solution of this problem an appeal will have to be 
made to many geological principles of which the high theoretical 
interest is universally acknowledged, although their practical impor- 
tance is not so immediately apparent. Thus the minute zonal work 
in the Chalk, the laborious studies among Jurassic Ammonites, as 
well as the detailed investigations of minor transgressions and non- 
sequences in the Mesozoic rocks generally, will all have their value 
when estimating the nature and thickness of cover over the buried 
Coal-measures. . . . 
One obvious line of attack is the more intensive study of the 
structure of the exposed coalfields, wlich is made possible by our 
ever-widening knowledge obtained largely from coal workings, present 
and past. . . 
Geological Features of the Visible Coalfields which bear upon the Distri- 
bution and Structure of Concealed Coalfields in the South Midlands 
of England. 
In touching upon this question of possible buried coalfields in the 
South Midlands of England, I wish briefly to refer to a few points 
connected with our detailed knowledge of already explored coalfields 
which must be taken into account. They may be grouped under two 
heads— 
(1) The stratigraphical breaks which are said to exist within 
the Coal-measures themselves; and 
(2) The post-Carboniferous and pre-Permian folding, and its 
relation to pre-Coal-measure movements. 
Geologists who have made a close study of the detailed sequence of 
any British coalfield are fairly agreed that, while sedimentation was 
accompanied by a general subsidence, the downward movement was 
discontinuous, possibly oscillatory, as evidenced, on the one hand, 
by the occurrence of marine bands in a general estuarine series, and, 
on the other hand, by those coal-seams, particularly, which consist 
of terrestrial accumulations of plant-material. But on a critical 
analysis of prevalent views we meet with considerable difference of 
opinion as to the inferences to be drawn from the known facts. 
Jukes-Browne, referring to Coal-measure time, says ‘‘ that it was 
a period of internal quiescence, a period in which terrestrial dis- 
turbances were at a minimum”’,’ and this notwithstanding his 
advocacy of the tremendous plication of the Malvern and Abberley 
Hills in the middle of the Coal-measure period, that is, in the 
interval between the Middle and Upper Coal-measures of England. 
Another high authority says ‘‘The Coal-measure Period as a whole 
was one of crust movement ’’.? 
1 The Building of the British Isles, p. 169, 1911. 
2 Q.J.G.S., vol. lvii, p. 94, 1901. 
