26 



IIARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



with the deposits of that particular age. On the 

 south there were thick strata of Oolitic formations, 

 which in the famous Sussex Wealden boring were 

 found to be nearly 2,000 feet in thickness. At Dover 

 they were 600 feet thick, but there they had bored 

 through the chalk, through this underlying 600 

 feet thick of oolite, and had struck the Carboni- 

 ferous rocks. Five different seams of coal had been 

 pierced, he believed, so that a shaft was following 

 the boring at the present time, and before long there 

 would be a Dover Coal-Field added to those already 

 existing in England. 



By means of a sketch on the blackboard, Dr. Taylor 

 showed that this easterly and westerly extension — 

 that is to say, between the west in England and the 

 east in Belgium and Northern France — was an anti- 

 clinal axis or series of axes, along whose flanks 

 different rocks of the primary period rested upon 

 each other in such a way that if they could be moved 

 to their relative positions, those furthest away from 

 the main ridge would be uppermost and latest 

 formed, while those close to the centre of the run 

 of the axis would be the oldest. Therefore, he 

 contended, it was along the outer flanks of this 

 main axis that the coal-beds would be found, 

 if anywhere. These flanks had themselves been 

 much contorted, so that the coal would be in the 

 form of narrow basins of no great width, although 

 of considerable length, running along the trend of 

 the underground primary ridge. For instance in 

 Somersetshire, the basins from which coal was at 

 present worked were very narrow in comparison with 

 their length. The Liege Coal-Field in Belgium was 

 not more than eight miles wide although it was 45 

 miles long. At Charleroi the coal-field was 'eight 

 miles broad and 35 miles long. Narrow as they 

 were, however, these coal-fields were rich in seams. 

 At Liege 35 different seams had been discovered ; in 

 Westphalia 117; and in all of the basins he had 

 mentioned coal was worked abundantly and profitably, 

 although at a great depth. It had been thought by 

 geologists in fonner years that it would be impracti- 

 cable to work for coal underneath the chalk. The 

 first intimation that this was not necessarily the case 

 was given by a deep artesian well-boring near Calais, 

 some years ago, in which the primary rocks were 

 struck just beneath the chalk, all the other secondary 

 strata being more or less absent. The Valenciennes 

 Coal-Field, which was only 30 miles away from 

 Calais, was now being very largely worked beneath 

 the chalk, and this gave encouragement to him (Dr. 

 Taylor) many years ago to believe that similar conditions 

 might prevail immediately under the chalk and tertiary 

 strata in the Eastern counties. 



The lecturer then directed attention to an artesian 

 well-boring made at Harwich in 1859, by Mr. Peter 

 Bruff, of Ipswich. That well had a depth of less 

 than 1,200 feet, but the Lower Carboniferous Rocks 

 were struck and penetrated to a depth of 70 feet. 



He pointed out, however, that these were not the 

 real coal-bearing rocks, and that every foot deeper 

 they went down at Harwich might take them further 

 away from the proper position where the coal-bearing 

 strata would be found, unless the strata were inverted, 

 as was the case in some parts of the Belgium coal- 

 field. The latter had doubtless been peeled off 

 by denudation during the period when the rocks 

 were exposed to atmospherical wear and tear, 

 and were depressed to become the bottom of the 

 cretaceous sea. The one important fact to geo- 

 logists in connection with the Harwich well-boring 

 was that none other of the secondary formations 

 were present beneath the chalk, but that the chalk 

 went bang down upon the old floor of primary rocks. 

 Reasoning on this point, and believing that to the 

 north the upper coal-measures — the higher coal- 

 measures, that was to say — would be found in 

 successive order resting upon the flanks of the 

 Harwich carboniferous foundation, he • had thought 

 that trial borings to the south of Suffolk, and 

 possibly to the north in Essex, might penetrate some 

 of the upper measure containing the crumbled, 

 narrow, and elongated coal-fields he had referred to. 

 A few years ago at Combs, near Stowmarket, the 

 chalk was pierced in a deep well at a considerably 

 less depth than had been anticipated — a little under 

 900 feet ; but unfortunately the boring-tool did not 

 proceed any further, so geologists were left in dark- 

 ness as to what remained underneath. The primary 

 rocks in Suffolk had never really been bottomed until 

 a few months ago, when at Culford, five miles from 

 Bury St. Edmunds, in an artesian well-boring upon 

 Lord Cadogan's estate, the chalk and the few beds 

 of underlying cretaceous strata were passed through, 

 and what were now believed to be the primary rocks 

 were reached. These .had only been pierced, how- 

 ever, for a distance of a few feet, and none of the 

 characteristic fossils of the carboniferous formation 

 had been brought up. Instead of that, the process 

 of boring had somehow or another carried down, 

 from the lower cretaceous beds, into the soft shales 

 of the primary rocks beneath, some of the lower 

 greensand microscopic fossils. The gault was repre- 

 sented by a comparatively hard bed, and a fragment 

 of an ammonite had been brought up which resembled 

 a liassic species. It was thought by geologists, 

 however, to be very unlikely that the lias strata 

 should occur at such a high level without any trace 

 of the oolitic rocks above, and the conclusion had 

 been arrived at, therefore, that the occurrence of this 

 fossil there in a fragmentary state must have been as 

 a derivative one. The bottom rocks at Culford, near 

 Bury St. Edmunds, the seat of Earl Cadogan, were 

 believed by Mr. A. Jukes-Brown, Mr. Whitaker, Mr. 

 Holmes, and others, to be primary ; and Dr. Taylor 

 expressed his conviction from the microscopical exa- 

 mination he had made of a few fragments, that they 

 were from the lower coal-measures of the carbonifer- 



