Vol. 58. | THE DEEP BORING AT LYME REGIS. 279 
16. On a Dexp Borne at Lyme Recis. By Atrrnp Joun Juxes- 
Browne, Esq., B.A., F.G.8. (Read March 26th, 1902.) 
I, Inrropvuctrory. 
Durine 1901 a boring was made near Lyme Regis in search 
of coal, and was carried to the depth of 1300 feet without reaching 
the base of the Upper Triassic marls. 
The story of this endeavour to find coal at a place where no 
geologist would have recommended the attempt, is one which 
has often been repeated at different places. The undertaking 
was promoted by a ‘practical man’ who had experience of coal- 
mining in South Wales, and who had convinced himself that coal 
was likely to be found at no great depth near Lyme Regis. He 
obtained ‘permission to bore, and induced a certain number of 
persons to form a syndicate, for the purpose of making a boring to 
ascertain the depth at which the expected Coal-Measures were 
to be found. 
The results of the boring have a twofold interest: first, to all 
people in the South-west of England they should be a warning 
against the folly of expecting to find Coal-Measures at a depth 
of less than 2000 feet below any part of Western Dorset ; secondly, 
they are of interest to geologists, for the information which is thus 
afforded as to the great thickness of the Keuper Marls in Devon 
and Dorset. 
It was anticipated that coal would be reached at a depth of less 
than 600 feet, and when this limit was passed without success it was 
decided to continue the boring to 1200 feet. At this depth it 
would have been abandoned, had it not been for the interest taken 
in the work by Mr. A. C. Pass, of Wootton Fitzpaine, near Char- 
mouth. Thinking it a pity that the boring should be given up 
without the attainment of any definite result, he found most of the 
funds for extending it from 1200 to 1300 feet, in the hope that 
between these depths the base of the Keuper Marls would be 
reached, and the underlying sandstones would be entered. It is 
also due to Mr. Pass that selections from the accumulated series of 
cores have been distributed to the following museums :—South 
Kensington, the Museum of Practical Geology (London), Bristol, 
Exeter, Dorchester, Taunton, and Torquay. 
The strata which were traversed by the boring are those known 
as the Blue Lias (lower part of the Lower Lias), the Rhatic Beds, 
and the Keuper Marls. These beds are all exposed in the cliffs 
along the coast between Lyme Regis and Sidmouth; and from the 
regular succession which is visible in these cliffs, anyone with a 
very elementary knowledge of geology could infer what series of 
beds he might expect to meet with in a boring at Lyme Regis. 
