Vol. 57.] COAL-MEASTIKES OF THE SHEOPSHIEE COALFIELDS. 9S 



work, the coal-seams lying both as to inclination and strike exactly 

 the same as the coals at Madeley (Shropshire). Then there is the 

 well-known Staffordshire anticline, running from Mow Cop past 

 Madeley ; and others are more obscurely evidenced in the district 

 about Shrewsbury, Haughmond Hill, and Childs Ercal. All these 

 have the same general east-north-easterly direction as those in 

 Shropshire. 



Erom this I infer that they were formed at the same time, under 

 the same conditions, by the same causes, and that we must there- 

 fore regard the region comprised between the Pendle range on the 

 north, the Shatterford anticline on the south, . the Welsh Hills on 

 the west, and the Pennine Chain and its prolongations on the east, 

 as one and the same coalfield, with the same geological history. 



Prof. Hull, in his ' Coalfields of Great Britain,' has gone fully 

 into this matter, and there claims to have been the first to show, 

 in his paper read before the British Association at Liverpool in 

 1870, the pre-Permian age of these flexures, but dates them as 

 post- Carboniferous. It is a difficult task to enunciate a view 

 contrary to so eminent an authority, but I respectfully submit that 

 the evidence which I have adduced goes to establish that the 

 stratigraphical break (in Shropshire at any rate) was during 

 Carboniferous times, after the deposition of the Middle Coal- 

 Measures, and prior to the deposition of the Upper (red) Measures. 



Should this contention prove to be correct, it will then follow 

 that in searching for coal below the Triassic rocks, the presence of 

 the Upper series of Coal-Measures forms no guarantee that the 

 Middle and Lower productive series will be present underneath. 

 The source from which guidance is to be obtained is the presence 

 of synclines in the Middle and Lower Coal-Measures in the collieries 

 in operation marginal to the Triassic area. Eor this purpose all 

 sections of borings and sinkings should be carefully recorded, and 

 in plotting out these sections all faults of later date than the Upper 

 Coal-Measures must be carefully eliminated. 



On both the eastern and western sides of the above-mentioned 

 region the exposed coalfields now in operation are believed, on 

 fairly good grounds, to be separated from their underground con- 

 tinuations under the Triassic area by downthrow faults of considerable 

 displacement. The coal under these Red Beds will be struck only 

 at a very great depth, and every unsuccessful attempt will entail 

 an enormous loss. In order to avoid such a loss, too much pains 

 cannot be taken to arrive at the exact configuration of the seams 

 in the marginal workings. 



Discussion. 



Prof. Lapwoeth congratulated the Societ}' upon the clear and 

 business-like manner in which the Author had laid his facts and 

 conclusions before the meeting. The general structure of the 

 Coalbrookdale Coalfield had been more or less familiar to geologists 

 since the publication of Prestwich's fine memoir upon it in 1840. 



