8 DR TEAILL ON THE TORBANEHILL MINERAL. 



I descended into No. 2, which was wrought by a small steam-engine. The 

 depth of the shaft was 17 fathoms. From the bottom of the shaft, a drift was 

 carried for 80 yards, in a northerly direction, with a dip of about 1 in 12, almost 

 half-way between No. 1 and No. 3. This working was so low, that we could not 

 stand upright ; and the most convenient mode of exploring its termination, or the 

 face, as it is technically termed, is to lie at full length in a truck, and to be leisurely 

 let down the incline. In descending, the succession of the strata are : — 



1. A thick roof of sandstone. 



2. Faeks, a crumbling shale =4 inches in thickness. This bed in No. 3 is want- 

 ing ; but it forms the roof in No. 4. 



3. Cement, a mixture of shale and a poor ironstone = 3 inches. 



4. Bitumenite, which in this pit at the/#&?=l foot 4 inches in thickness. 



5. Fine Ironstone, from 2 inches to \ inch. 



6. Bituminous Shale, often containing tabular masses of good ironstone = 

 2 inches. 



7. An inferior coal =7 inches. These four last-mentioned beds are all raised 

 with the Bitumenite, and together measure 2 feet 3 inches in thickness. 



8. Coal, much mixed with shale, here called foul coal, about 2 feet 4 inches. 



9. Fire-clay. 



These notices will sufficiently shew the position of the Bitumenite, &c, which 

 has nothing peculiar in its situation in the earth to distinguish it from any other 

 mineral occurring in a coal-field. It seems, however, to be thickest near the top 

 of the field, as in No. 4, and to diminish a little in thickness in the other two pits. 



I had the pleasure of visiting Torbanehill with one of the most eminent and 

 experienced coal-surveyors of England, Mr Nicholas Wood, President of the 

 North of England Institute of Mining Engineers, and asked him, " If you had 

 bored at Torbanehill before the working of the shafts, would you, from what the 

 instrument brought up, have said that there was here a workable coal? ,; He an- 

 swered, " Decidedly not. The 7-inch coal is not workable; and the substance 

 you call Bitumenite I should have considered as a shale." 



I have compared Bitumenite with a great number of different coals, as with 

 common English coal, Wigan cannel, and with several varieties of Scottish coals, 

 as — 



1. Lord Stair's cannel or parrot coal, from Oxenford. 



2. Marquis of Lothian's parrot coal. 



3. West Wemyss parrot coal. 



4. Arniston parrot coal. 



5. Methill coal, which, however, approaches more nearly to bituminous shale 

 than to common coal, having a nearly dull fracture, though with a strongly 

 shining streak unchanged in colour. 



