346 



PALEOZOIC TIME. 



In the Lancashire Coal-region, which reaches nearly to Liverpool, 

 the Coal-measures are stated to have a thickness of 7,200 feet, and to 

 include over forty beds of coal over one foot in thickness, and the 

 Millstone-grit of 3,500 to 5,500 feet. 



The Lancashire area, and the Cumberland, farther north, lie on the 

 west side of an anticlinal ridge, mostly of Subcarboniferous and Lower 

 Carboniferous rocks, called the Pennine chain, in some points 2,000 

 feet high, which extends north to the Cheviot Hills, between England 

 and Scotland. The Derbyshire and Newcastle areas are to the east 

 of this anticlinal. In the former, the thickness of the Coal-measures 

 is less than 4,000 feet, of which nineteen beds are of coal, and that of 

 the Millstone-grit is about 350 feet. In the latter, the Coal-measures 

 are about 2,000 feet thick, and include about sixty feet of coal, and 

 the Millstone-grit is a little over 400 feet thick : the beds afford about 

 a fourth of the coal of England. 



In the south of Ireland, the Coal-measures contain 300 feet of 

 Lower shales, 500 of the flagstone series, and 1,800 of shales, sand- 

 stones, etc., with coal ; and, in the north of England, there are 500 

 feet of Millstone grit, beneath 2,000 of Coal-measures. 



Ramsay has stated that, under Permian and Triassic strata, north 

 of the Bristol coal-field, there may probably be about 55,000 millions 

 of tons of coals available, at all events at less than 4,000 feet in 

 depth ; and to this Mr. Prestwich has added 400 millions of tons for 

 the Severn valley, on the south side of the estuary. 



The coal-workings are carried on in most of the British mines by a regular system of 

 deep mining. At Whitehaven, the mines reach out far under the sea. All coal-beds, a 

 foot thick and within 4,000 feet of the surface, are regarded by Ramsay as economically 

 workable; and, on this as a basis, he calculates that the amount of coal available is 

 80,000,000,000 of tons. In 1870, 110,000,000 tons of coal were raised. 



It is believed, with apparently good reason, that the Coal-measures, with their many 

 coal-beds, may exist beneath the region of Permian rocks numbered 6 in the map on 

 page 344, and perhaps farther to the southeastward. 



The coal of England, Scotland, and Ireland is mainly bituminous or semi-bituminous. 

 Anthracite occurs in South Wales, especially its western part, and also in the mines of 

 southern Ireland (Cork, Kerry, Limerick, and Clare); but this variety is in general less 

 hard and more inflammable than that of Pennsylvania. 



The following are the principal coal-mines of the countries of Europe: — 



France. — Basin of the Loire (St. Etienne); containing eighteen beds of bituminous 

 coal, and also some anthracite; Moselle (Saarbriick); Burgundy; Languedoc; Pro- 

 vence; Limousin; Auvergne; Brittany. 



Belgium. — Liege Coal-field, — the eastern division, about 100,000 acres; Hainault 

 Coal-field, — the western division, 200,000 acres. 



Germany. — Basin of the Saar, tributary to the Moselle, on the borders of France 

 (the Saarbriick Coal-field); Basin of the Ruhr, tributary to the Rhine, near Dusseldorf 

 (Dortmund and Westphalian Coal-fields), — the eastern extension of the Belgian region. 

 In Saxony, near Zwickau and Dresden. 



Austria. — Bohemia, south of the Erzgebirge and Riesengebirge, and reaching into 

 Silesia. 



