84 Mr. F. Forsteb's Observations on the South Welsh Coal Basin. 



observation by tracing two bands of Limestone with the Coal adjacent 

 to each, along the northern and southern frontiers of the Pembrokeshire 

 Coal-field ; and that, not only through Pembrokeshire, but in continua- 

 tion through the other counties of South Wales ; that is to say, over a 

 ti'act exceeding 100 miles in length. He thus anticipates much of the 

 information contained in the valuable Memoir on the Coal Basin of 

 South "Wales, communicated by Mr. Martin, to the Royal Society, in 

 1806. 



" The connection of these calcareous bands with those of the Forest 

 of Dean and neighbourhood of Bristol, is likewise suggested. A third 

 line is also traced to the north of the northern calcareous band in Pem- 

 brokeshire, along which Owen supposes another continuous band of 

 Limestone to extend. Along this line, however, the calcareous masses, 

 which occur, are discontinuous, and are in truth detached portions of 

 transition Limestone, subordinate to Greywacke Slate, which, very ge- 

 nerally along that line, contains a mixture of calcareous matter. 



" At the same time that Owen lays down correctly the general fact 

 of the regular arrangement and continuity of mineral masses, he appears 

 to have had confused notions of their position below the surface of the 

 earth. He calls these masses, indiscriminately, veins, is ignorant of the 

 distinction between veins and beds ; neglects entirely the dip of the 

 beds, and seems not to have entertained any suspicion that the two 

 bands of Limestone, the northern and the southern, had a subterraneous 

 communication, and thus formed a great Basin, containing the superin- 

 cumbent Coal Measures ; a doctrine afterwards so ably developed in the 

 paper of Mr. Martin. We do not find in Owen's Memoir any notice 

 of the organic remains of the strata." 



The idea entertained by Owen that the mineral masses he describes 

 were separate veins or bands, passing downwards to an indefinite depth, 

 though apparently absurd to those accustomed to the comparatively 

 level and regular strata of our northern districts, was by no means un- 

 natural in Pembrokeshire, where the beds of Coal and Limestone are 

 highly inclined and contorted, and at a period when the imperfect state 

 of machinery rendered any research below the mere outcrop of the 



