W. Molyneux — Copper and Lead Ores in the Bunter. 17 



In the maps of the Survey to which I have alluded, this area, 

 with but a trifling exception, is laid down as Bunter pebble- 

 beds, overspread by unconsolidated conglomerates of the New 

 Eed Sandstone, and it was in these beds, at a place called Shore 

 Hill, about a mile north of the town of Cannock, that I first 

 detected, about two years ago, the copper and lead ore to which this 

 paper refers. Before, however, entering upon a description of these 

 ores, I will refer to the extension of Coal-measures beneath the beds 

 of this locality laid down as members of the New Red Sandstone. 



Exactly three years ago the West Cannock Colliery Company was 

 formed, and, acting upon my advice, commenced sinking a pair of 

 pits at a point situated a little over half a mile on the west side 

 of the supposed boundary fault, to which I have drawn atten- 

 tion, and the result was that the whole of the valuable coal-seams of 

 the Cannock Chase disti'ict, from the horizon of the Brooch coal 

 (which was struck at thirty-five yards), were found within a depth 

 of 300 yards from the surface. The Coal-measures were found 

 to be covered up by six feet of drift sand and clay only, and 

 there is no doubt whatever that this condition, with but little 

 variation, obtains over quite 2000 acres of country lying imme- 

 diately around. I have the further satisfaction of alluding to these 

 sinkings, as they yielded, in a dark shale lying above the greater 

 proportion of the workable coal, fossils which had never been pre- 

 viously recorded as occurring in South Staffordshire — fossils both 

 generically and specifically identical with forms long held as con- 

 fined to the horizon of the basement beds of the true coal, and the 

 Lower Carboniferous rocks of this country, namely, Goniatites,. 

 Orthoceras, Posidonia, Aviculopecten, together with Lingula and 

 others, a complete list and description of which I hope to have the 

 opportunity of preparing hereafter. I mention the fact of the 

 occurrence of these shells in beds overlying a thick mass of valuable 

 coals by way of suggesting how careful we should be in forming 

 an opinion as to the mineralogical capabilities of districts merely 

 from the examination of isolated specimens of contemporaneous 

 organic life obtained from it. I may remark that the Bunter 

 conglomerates of Cannock Chase are of an exceedingly interest- 

 ing character, and probably there is no other tract where they 

 could be studied or examined with greater advantage. They, 

 as is well known, are made up of an astonishing variety of peb- 

 bles, every pebble being more or less rounded, and. moreover, 

 largely intermixed with rolled fragments of Silurian and Carbon- 

 iferous rocks, containing fossils of those formations. And it was 

 in working up these deposits which first led me two years ago 

 to visit the gravel-pits which belong to Lord Hatherton, at Shore 

 Hill or Huntington, to which I have alluded. The conglomerates 

 are here exposed by a section of from 80 to 100 feet, and they 

 dip to the west at an angle of about twenty degrees. They 

 consist of the ordinary groups of pebbles and irregular intersection 

 of sandy rock, and at about the middle of the section occurs the 

 copper ore, in the form of a green carbonate intermixed with the 

 VOL. X, — NO. cm. 2 



