704 Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. TDec. 



now eleven years under notice. I had occasion to send home some copies of 

 my printed Coal Survey reports to Glamorganshire, and it has been the means 

 of arousing attention to the same circumstances as to Boulders of Coal being 

 found in veins of Coal which have horizontal layers. An old acquaintance, 

 Mr. Benson of Swansea, an extensive Coal Miner and Copper Smelter, at 

 the late meeting of the British Association, read a paper on the Boulder 

 Coal found in a vein of Coal. I send you the paper, which is interesting 

 enough, but I must not be deprived of my priority of its public notification, 

 which now stands as recorded in the Society's Journal, as well as in my 

 printed reports of 1842. 



I beg you to take care of the paper, not having any other Copy, and request 

 you to return it as soon as you conveniently can. 



1st Nov. 1848. 



Your's truly, 



J. HOMFRAY. 



P. S. It may be interesting to some persons to know that the locality of 

 this new Colliery whence these Boulders are taken, is situated less than one 

 mile from the site of the oldest Colliery in that district opened by Mr. Heatly 

 near Aytura village, and upon the same vein. 



" The following is an extract from Mr. Benson's paper." 



" Mr. Benson next read a communication on a boulder of Cannel Coal 

 found in a vein of common bituminous Coal. 



About ten years since, Mr. Logan noticed the frequent coal and iron 

 stone conglomerates occurring in the sandstones of the Town Hill, near Swan- 

 sea. His attention was first awakened to the subject from the discovery of 

 an undoubted boulder of Cannel Coal above the seam of common bitumi- 

 nous coal, called the Five-feet Rock Vein, at Penclawdd. The series of coal 

 measures included in the Pennant rock are easily traceable throughout the 

 South Wales Coal field, from the greater hardness of their sandstone, and 

 their elevation as a nearly continuous range of hills. It would appear that 

 whilst the sandstones and slabs of the coal measures below the Pennant 

 rocks have been deposited or formed in comparatively quiet water the sand- 

 stones of the Pennant series contain frequent conglomerates of coal and 

 ironstones, drifted plants, and occasionally small boulders of granite, with 

 other proofs of drift to a considerable extent having occurred during the 

 period of their formation. Bivalve shells are also found in considerable mass- 

 es in the shales below the Pennant group, both on the north and south out- 

 crop, evidently showing that they now repose unmoved from their original 

 beds, whilst the only shells I have yet seen on the Pennant were at a short 



