194 Mr. AiKiN o« the Wrekin, and on the 



being occasion to put down a drainage pit, its place was fixed upon 

 about one hundred and fifty yards further in the dip of the work 

 than a pit which had ah-eady been sunk through the regular coal- 

 strata to the depth of about one hundred yards : when the new pit 

 was begun, the workmen wei*e surprised on finding themselves in the 

 sandstone ; they nevertheless persevered till they reached the depth 

 of fifty yards, when the work was abandoned, the entire sinking hav- 

 ing been in an uniform bed of red sandstone. . ! Jnoo 31 .rfoidv/ 



The town of Newport may be considered as marking the apex of 

 an acute angle formed by one line passing to the S.W. through a 

 trap-formation including the hills of Lilleshutl, the Wrekin, the 

 Lawley, Caer Caradoc, and Ragleath ; and by another line running 

 nearly due south and coinciding with the western edge of the red 

 sandstone. The stratified rocks included within this angle rise to 

 the west or north-west, and of course have their dead level or line 

 of horizontal bearing between N. and S. and N.E. and S.W. being- 

 inflected towards the one or the other of these points apparently by 

 their proximity to the sandstone or to the trap. They are also much 

 more closely accumulated on each other, and are generally elevated 

 at a higher angle, as they advance from the south to the north : thus, 

 the same succession of strata, which occupies a line of between four 

 and five miles in the parallel of Caer Caradoc, is contracted within 

 a space of less than three quarters of a mile in the parallel of the 

 Wrekin. 



I now proceed to give a brief detail of the several strata and beds, 

 beginning with the most recent. 



The tndepetident coal-formation is found immediately adjacent to 

 the red sandstone from Wombridge in the parallel of V/ellington to 

 Coal-port on the Severn, a length of about six miles ; its greatest 

 breadth is about two miles. It rises west a little to the north at an 



