68 . SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 
the Pennines, and a few north-west fractures occupied by Tertiary dykes, 
- the disposition of those faults agrees so closely with the trend of older 
structures that all may be interpreted as posthumous adjustments of the 
underlying floor. The later structural history of the Midland Coalfield 
Province is not documented by its own deposits, and we may leave the 
stratigraphical study of its development at this stage. 
Fotp DISTRIBUTION. 
A striking feature of the small-scale geological map of England is the 
alignment of the coalfields in east-west rows. The coalfield of South 
Wales is an east-west downfold in the forefield of the Hercynian mountain 
chain, and it has been assumed that, beyond the upfold of the Midland or 
Mercian Highland barrier, the Midland group of coalfields occupies the 
following trough. The history of coalfield evolution outlined above tells 
us that the Midland barrier was already a structural unit when Carbon- 
iferous rocks were laid against it. There is no suggestion of natural 
separation of the southern Midland coalfield district from the greater 
coalfields around the southern Pennines. The filled Carboniferous 
geosynclinal basin, subsequently everted, must for structural purposes 
be considered as a whole. The wide pre-Permian break between its 
Yorkshire-Lancashire edge and the downfold containing the Durham- 
Cumberland alignment also may be a Hercynian master-upfold, but 
pending analysis of its structures, it were well to suspend judgment. 
With the idea that east-west downfolds across the Midlands are 
Hercynian, goes the notion that the Pennine ‘ backbone of England ’ is 
a complementary north-south cross-fold; but there is divergence of 
strikes within it, and as we know that the limestone district of Derbyshire 
was upstanding at the time of the pre-Lancastrian unconformity, it is 
difficult to accept it as other than a rejuvenated and accentuated group of 
older structures. 
Having looked for and failed to recognise the leading lines of the 
supposed Hercynian chessboard in the arrangement of coalfields within 
the Midland Province, I long since suggested that the upstanding High 
Peak massif of limestone of Derbyshire is founded upon an extension of 
the pre-Cambrian platform of Charnwood Forest, and I would now 
maintain that contention by a demonstration of the distribution of its 
supporting folds. To this end I have had compiled, first by pantographic 
reduction from the 1-in. geological maps to the }-in. scale, and then by 
photography and retracing, the diagram (Fig. 1), on which are plotted in 
correct relationship all fold-lines which the officers of the Geological Survey 
have located and indicated on the published maps.” ‘The result is striking, 
both in confirming the alignment of the High Peak plateau with Charnwood 
Forest, and in its emphasis of the persistence of other ridge lines from the 
11 W. G. Fearnsides, ‘ Some Effects of Earth Movement on the Coal Measures 
of the Sheffield District,’ Pt. II., Tvans. Inst. Min. Eng., vol. 51, pp. 445-450 
(1916). 
12 The laborious work of this reduction was undertaken by William Pulfrey, 
M.Sc., Ph.D., research worker in the Department of Geology at Sheffield 
University, to whom I return grateful thanks. 
