ICK ON FOSSIL DICOTYLEDONOUS TREES. 43 



O °o ° 



'o ° o 



about a quarter of an acre (as shown in exact position on the 

 accompanying sketch), and in the second they appeared equally 

 abundant, as we laid bare three trees in as many yards square. 

 The characters of the lower trees were similar to those described, 

 but longer portions of the trunks were developed, the thickness of 

 coal being seventeen inches in the spot opened ; but this varies in 

 other parts of the bed. These trees do not pass through the upper 

 shale, but the trunks occupy the whole thickness of this second 

 coal-bed, and we found the substratum to consist of a shale, similar 

 to that above, and 5 inches thick ; while below this was a bed of 

 fire clay, seven inches thick, reposing upon a third bed of coal in 

 which trees were not found. 



I should perhaps add that the upper coal is capped with fire 

 clay, in which no traces of the trees have been observed. 



3. Description of the Remains of numerous Fossil Dicotyle- 

 donous Trees in an Outcrop of the Bottom Coal at Parkfield 

 Colliery, near Bilston. By William Ick, Esq., F. G. S. 



At a depth varying from forty to fifty yards below the Ten-yard 

 stratum of the South Staffordshire coal-field, there are usually 

 found three deposits of coal, called the Top, the New Mine, and 

 the Bottom Coal. When these beds can be readily worked, they 

 are scarcely inferior in value to the Ten-yard coal, the Top and 

 New Mine deposit, with the intervening shales and partings, often 

 forming a series of strata eight yards in thickness. Below this a 

 few beds of ironstone occur ; then a bed of fire clay about three 

 yards in thickness, and immediately under this the Bottom Coal. 



At Parkfield Colliery, 1^ miles west of Bilston, and at about 

 the same distance south of Wolverhampton, there is a fine outcrop 

 of this Bottom Coal, which is now being got in open work. In 



