On the Prospects of Coal South of the Mendips. 501 



mission (vol. i.), it may not be iminteresting to offer a few remarks 

 on the present aspect of the question. 



But few new facts have been brought to light during the re-survey 

 of the geology of the district. 



Traces of Old Eed Sandstone and Lower Limestone Shales 

 were detected in a wooded hollov/ extending in a north-westerly 

 direction from the entrance to the picturesque Mountain Limestone 

 ravine to which the name of Ebber Eocks is given. These beds are 

 brought in by a fault which throws the Old Eed Sandstone against 

 the Mountain Limestone on the western side. (See section.) 



Higher up there is marshy ground, where a spring is given out ; and 

 on still higher ground above this, at the head of the ravine, we come 

 suddenly upon Millstone Grit,^ large boulders of which lie strewn 

 about the surface. Crossing over the lane between Easton and 

 Priddy, there is a dilapidated old building, where the Mountain 

 Limestone is seen dipping at an angle of 35° S.W. A few yards to 

 the south, hard close-grained quartzites, with small reddish-brown 

 ferruginous specks, occur, overljdng conformably the Mountain Lime- 

 stone. Their extension in a westerly direction is concealed by the 

 Dolomitic Conglomerate. These are, undoubtedly, the bottom beds 

 of the Millstone Grit, and in places thin beds of hard grit and shale 

 may be seen. . A little east of the lane, near the bends, there is a 

 shallow hole, apparently a trial-shaft, from which black Carbonaceous 

 shales have been obtained, and which, no doubt, are beds belonging 

 to the Millstone Grit. The working was evidently abandoned after 

 a very short trial, when, probably, the Mountain Limestone was 

 reached. To the east, at the head of the ravine, the Millstone Grit 

 is cut off by a north and south fault, which brings in the before- 

 mentioned Old Eed Sandstone and shales ; and a short distance down 

 the ravine, we were astonished, when paying a visit to the spot 

 in October, to find a shaft was being sunk, with steam winding 

 machinery, in search of coal in the Lower Limestone Shales, which 

 had evidently been passed through, inasmuch as the rock then brought 

 to the surface was Old Eed Sandstone. The fragments of Carbo- 

 naceous shale in the old trial-shaft had probably misled the prosecu- 

 tors of the second undertaking to suppose that the Coal-measures were 

 present, and that lower down, in a southerly direction, they would 

 be likely to succeed in finding coal. (See Woodcut, p. 502.) 



A more unpromising place for finding coal could scarcely have 

 been selected anywhere in the neighbourhood, for the spot where the 

 shaft was being sunk is closely surrounded on all sides by rocks of 

 greater age than the Coal-measures ; in fact, the little valley in 

 which the works were being carried on may, in general terms, be 

 described as two narrow strips of Lower Limestone Shale and Old 

 Eed Sandstone a few chains wide, and surrounded by higher ground 

 composed of Mountain Limestone. The sinking of this shaft under 

 such manifestly hopeless conditions shows a want of knowledge of 

 the elements of geology and coal-mining that could scarcely be sup- 



1 Noticed by H. B. W., Geol. Mag., Vol. VIII., 1871, p. 152. 



