CARBONIFEROUS AGE. 345 



and includes workable coal-beds, in China, and also in India and 

 Australia ; but part of the formation in these latter regions may prove 

 to be Permian. No coal of this era has yet been found in South 

 America, Africa, or Asiatic Russia. 



The proportion of coal-beds to area in different parts of Europe 

 has been stated as- follows: in France, l-100th of the surface; in 

 Spain, l-50th; in Belgium, l-20th ; in Great Britain, 1-1 Oth. But, 

 while the coal-area in Great Britain is about 12,000 square miles, 

 that of Spain is 4,000, that of France about 2,000, and that of Bel- 

 gium 518. 



The distribution of the Coal-measures over England is shown on the accompanying 

 map, the black areas, numbered 4, representing them. The Coal-measures appear over 

 a broad region running north-northeast across from South Wales to the northeast coast, 

 where is the Newcastle basin. The principal regions are the South Wales, 600,000 

 acres in area, and, in nearly the same latitude, the Forest of Dean, west of the Severn, 

 and the region about Bristol, east of the Severn; the small patches in central England, 

 in Worcestershire, Shropshire (Coalbrook Dale), Warwickshire, Leicestershire, and Staf- 

 fordshire; north of these, the great Lancashire region, east of Liverpool, with the 

 basin of Flintshire on the Dee, the whole together over 500,000 acres ; a little to the 

 east, the Derbyshire coal region, between Nottingham and Leeds, and adjoining Shef- 

 field (covering parts of Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, and Yorkshire), 550,000 acres in 

 area; farther north, a patch on the western coast, in Cumberland, about Whitehaven, 

 etc.; and, on the eastern coast, the great region of Newcastle, 500,000 acres in area. 



In Scotland, the beds cover an area of about two thousand square miles, and lie be- 

 tween the Grampian range on the north and the Lammermuirs on the south. 



In Ireland, there are several large coal-regions, — that of Ulster, to the north, esti- 

 mated at 500,000 acres; of Connaught, also in the north, 200,000; of Leinster (Kil- 

 kenny), in the southeast, 150,000; of Munster, on the west, south of Galway Bay, 

 1,000,000. 



Ramsay observes that all the coal-areas of England were once one 

 great coal-field ; in other words, that they were made in one con- 

 tinuous area of marshes and inland lakes. He also thinks it probable 

 that the coal-area of the lowlands of Scotland was originally part 

 of the same great basin. 



The first stratum in the Carboniferous series, over the Subcarbon- 

 iferous, is the Millstone-grit, — as in Pennsylvania. 



In South Wales, the thickness of the Coal-measures is 7,000 to 

 12,000 feet, with more than one hundred coal-beds, seventy of which 

 are worked: that of the Millstone-grit is 400 to 1,000 feet. 



In the Fore st-of- Dean, the Coal-measures have a thickness of 2,400 

 feet, and include at least twenty-three coal-beds, and the Millstone- 

 grit 455 feet : while in the Bristol coal-field, the other side of the 

 Severn, there are 5,090 feet of Coal-measures, with eighty-seven coal- 

 beds, according to Prestwich ; but a middle portion, called the Pennant 

 series, 1,725 feet thick, consists largely of sandstone, and contains only 

 five coal-beds. Below, there are nearly 1,000 feet of Millstone-grit, 

 which is partly red sandstone. 



