8. 8harp — Futile Search for Coal. 505 



Otherwise sucli borings might have been made in the country to the 

 south of the Mendips, as well as in other localities in the south of 

 England, where the presence of Coal-measures has been inferred 

 beneath the Secondary rocks. ^ 



III. — Note on a Futile Seaech for Coal near Northampton. 



By Samuel Sharp, F.S.A., F.G.S. 



HAVING had my attention drawn to a communication from H. 

 W. Bristow, Esq., F.R.S., District Surveyor of the G-eological 

 Survey of England and Wales, which appeared in the Wells Journal 

 of 12th October, and which relates how he came upon a shaft (with 

 steam-engine, etc., in full operation) that was being sunk for Coal 

 about three-quarters of a mile North of Easton, in Somersetshire, 

 and which shaft penetrated the Old Red Sandstone to a depth of 

 112 yards, starting at a point from 3,000 to 4,000 feet below the 

 horizon of the lowest strata of the true Coal-measures, I think it not 

 undesirable to make known the fact of an as unwise and hopeless 

 search for Coal in Northamptonshire, at a point probably more re- 

 moved vertically, but in the opposite direction, from any strata in 

 which Coal wonld be likely to be found. 



About thirty-five years ago, a company was formed, based upon 

 the advice also of "a practical man," at Northampton, and a shaft 

 was sunk at Kingsthorpe, a village lying immediately North of that 

 county town. The spot selected was nearly the highest in the neigh- 

 bourhood, and remarkable for the presence of quarries in a bed of 

 Limestone of the Great Oolite formation, of a thickness of about 

 twenty-five feet; which limestone overlies an estuarine Clay (also 

 Great Oolite) of fifteen feet. These are succeeded by the three 

 divisions of the Northampton Sand (Inferior Oolite), having an ag- 

 gregate depth of say eighty feet, which repose upon the Upper Lias. 

 So that these upper beds have a depth of about 120 feet. 



No accurate detailed section of the shaft was taken at the time ; 

 but at a depth of 210 feet from the surface, a water-yielding "Lime- 

 stone rock," in the Middle Lias (Marlstone), was pierced, which 

 produced 36,000 gallons of water per hour. At the depth of 880 

 feet (as is stated in pencil-notes on a diagram in my possession, which 

 notes are said to have been made by Dr. Wm. Smith, E.R.S., F.G.S., 

 etc.), the New Eed Sandstone was reached, and a flow of brackish 

 water of a like volume to the former occurred. The New Eed Sand- 

 stone is stated to have consisted of " sixty feet of Sandstone, twelve 

 feet of Eed Marl, and fifteen feet of Conglomerate." At this point 

 (a depth of 967 feet having been attained, and about £30,000 ex- 

 pended) the enterprise was abandoned. 



1 Mr. Prestwich remarks that a few trials for coal would not be very costly, and 

 that they could hardly fail in important results, as in case of failing at once to hit the 

 Coal-measiu'es, we might possibly find the Lower Greensands, and obtain its pure and 

 abundant waters, a consideration of high importance to the metropolis. Report of 

 Coal Commission, p. 165. — This is not the place for going fully into the question of 

 the occurrence of Coal in the south-eastern counties, but I agree with Sir Roderick 

 Murchison that it is highly improbable that a remunerative Coal-field will ever be 

 discovered in that area. — H. B. W. 



