348 H. E. Hippisley-^Somersetshire Coal-measures. 



series, including tlie Gloucestershire measures above the upper series 

 coals, we find a very striking resemblance, apart from the commer- 

 cial value of the coals, between the Farmborough and Gloucestershire 

 sections ; so that it appears as if the commonly supposed absence of 

 the Eadstock measures in Gloucestershire can scarcely be explained 

 by saying that the Gloucestershire measures, as now existing, do not 

 extend sufficiently in ascending order to include the Eadstock mea- 

 sures, which are usually stated to have once existed in Gloucester- 

 shire, but to have been removed by denudation. 



Similarly, the position of the red shale bed in Gloucestershire, 

 supposed to be a remnant of the red shales dividing the Eadstock 

 from the Farrington measures, is vastly higher above the Glouces- 

 tershire upper series seams, than the red shales at Old Grove are 

 above the so-called Farrington seams at that place. 



Again referring to the Gloucestershire general section, it will be 

 found that red shales occur in no less than four different positions — 



1st. The bed already referred to near the top of the section, about 

 eighteen feet thick only. 2nd. Below the Gloucestershire ' Great ' 

 Vein, between it and close to the coal next below it. 3i-d. Imme- 

 diately above, and resting on, the Pennant. 4th. In three beds of 

 similar thickness to those at Old Grove and Braysdown, about one- 

 third of the distance between the Pennant and the Millstone Grit. 



It is suggested that these last three beds of red shale may be the 

 Gloucestershire equivalents of the red shales in Somersetshire, which 

 are taken as dividing the Eadstock and Farrington groups at Old 

 Grove and Braysdown, and that the real Farrington group, that is 

 to say, the group worked at Farrington Gurney and Old Mills, are, 

 not the veins proved at Old Grove and Braysdown below the red 

 shales there, but a group lower still in the lower series, reaching 

 downwards nearly to the Millstone Grit, instead of to the top of the 

 Pennant as usually supposed. 



At Farrington Gurney Colliery, immediately below the New Eed 

 Sandstone, a bed of red-coloured shale was passed through, in all 

 pi'obability merely ordinary grey shale coloured red by infiltration 

 from the red ground next above it, as no such red shales occur at, 

 or near to, a similar distance above the ' Cathead ' Vein a,t Old Mills, 

 and the position of this bed of red shale at Farrington Gurney is 

 quite at variance with the position in which, from Old Grove or 

 Braysdown data, the Somersetshire red shales should occur. 



Cases are known in which this red colouration extends to a con- 

 siderable depth beneath overlying red ground, the colour being not 

 merely in the joints and bedding planes, but permeating the entire 

 substance of the shales. 



If the detailed sections at Old Mills and at Ludlows, Eadstock 

 (above the lap), are placed side by side, with the veins called at both 

 places ' Middle ' Vein, together, a very remarkable resemblance, in 

 the details of two sections of which the component parts are arranged 

 in a peculiarly distinctive manner, may be observed : so much so 

 that the section at one place might almost be taken as the section at 

 the other. This resemblance is sufficiently remarkable to afford 



