346 Mr. Weaver's Geological Observations on 



forty-five years ago^ in the northern portion of the field, about 500 yards south 

 of the dell, where an engine shaft and a bye pit were sunk about eighty yards 

 in depth, while shallower pits were also opened further to the north in the field. 

 These workings were soon abandoned ; and no written document remains, 

 explanatory of the beds that were passed through. The rubbish of the old pits 

 and shallow levels, exhibits fine close-grained sandstone, reddish and grayish 

 slate-clay, some clay ironstone, bituminous shale, gray indurated clay, and 

 compact quartzy sandstone with flakes of black shale. 



Within the last few years, the working of this same colliery was resumed ; 

 a steam engine having been erected on the old engine shaft, and new pits 

 opened in the northern and north-western portions of the field; but after three 

 years work, the undertaking has been again relinquished. I am indebted to 

 Mr. Walker, the lessee of the colliery, for the following account of the dis- 

 position of the beds in this fields taken in one of the basset pits, where they 

 appeared most regular : 



1. Soil and clay ..... 



2. Gritstone, or sandstone 



3. " Clunchy bind," or indurated slaty clay 



4. Coal, bituminous, very tender, yielding only small, 



coal ...... 



5. " Stony clunch," sandy indurated clay 



6. '^ Rock," sandstone, partly compact and quartzy 



7. " Duns," slate clay .... 



8. "Black duns," bituminous shale, being the imme- 



diate roof, very tender 



9. Coal, bituminous, yielding large coal 16 inches, 



small coal 14 do. 



49 1 9 

 10. The "floor;" consisting of "clunch more or less^ 

 stony," that is, of indurated clay more or less sandy. S 

 The dip of the beds, where they preserved an uniform plane in the field, 

 was generally one in three, or 20" toward the west of south ; but this seldom 

 continued to any great extent, as they were more frequently undulated, 

 forming troughs and saddles. 



The coal varied extremely in thickness in different places; having been 

 found in some parts thirty inches, in others fourteen inches, in others again six 

 inches thick, while in some quarters no coal at all was to be seen. It never re- 

 tained a regular thickness for many yards together ; and, in some places (rather 





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