FOSSIL FLORA OF THE STAFFORDSHIRE COAL FIELDS. 75 



Turning now to the South Staffordshire Coal Field, the following table shows the 



formations represented in that area : — # 



Upper Carboniferous : 



Radstockian Series — 



Keele Beds ....... 800 feet or more. 



Staffordian Series — 



Newcastle Beds . . . . . .500 feet. 



Ktruria Marls . . . . . . 600 to 1000 feet. 



Black Band Group ...... Absent. 



Westphalian Series (Middle Coal Measures) . . . 500 to 2000 feet. 



Lanarkian Series (Lower Coal Measures and Millstone Grit) . Absent. 



Lower Carboniferous ...... Absent. 



Devonian t . . . . . . . . . Present. 



Silurian ........ Present. 



With the plants of the Radstockian Series and Staffordian Series in South 

 Staffordshire I do not treat here. At present these rocks are being examined by 

 members of the Geological Survey, so it is unnecessary for me to refer to them further 

 than to point out (which has already been done in the above table) their relationships 

 to the underlying Westphalian Series, with the fossil plants of which the present 

 memoir only deals. 



The exposed Coal Measures of South Staffordshire form a tract extending from 

 the Clee Hills in the south to Brereton in the north, and from Wolverhampton in the 

 west to Walsall in the east, a distance of 21 miles from south to north and about 7 from 

 east to west ; but within the last forty years the coal field has been proved to extend 

 eastward under the newer rocks, and the Thick coal is now worked at Sandwell and 

 Great Barr near Birmingham, and in the last ten years the extension of the coal field 

 westwards has been proved at Baggeridge Colliery, Himley. 



With the object of showing the distribution of the fossil plants in the Westphalian 

 Series of the South Staffordshire Coal Field, and the relationship of the beds to each 

 other from which the plants were derived, a table of the chief strata and coal seams, 

 which is taken from the late Mr J. Beete Jukes' memoir on The South Staffordshire 

 Coal Field, is inserted here : — \ 



General Section of the Central and Southern Part of the Coal Field. 



/la. The Halesowen \ 

 1. § Beds above the Upper Sulphur coal<J Jft ^^^ ^^l > ■ • . 600 to 800 feet. 



' Measure Clays. ) 



* Gibson, Geol. of Coal and Goal Mining, Arnold's Geological Series, 1908, pp. 180-184. Vernon, Quart. 

 Journ. Geol. Soc, vol. Ixviii., 1912, p. 613. Kay, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc, vol. lxix. p. 433, 1913. 



tW. Wickham King, "The Uppermost Silurian and Old Red Sandstone of South Staffordshire," Geol. Mag., 

 dec. v., vol. ix. pp. 437-443, 484-491, 1912. 



X Memoir of the Geological Survey of Great Britain and of the Museum of Practical Geology : The South 

 Staffordshire Coal Field, by J. Beete Jukes, M.A. Camb., F.R.S., etc., 2nd ed., 1859, p. 20. 



§ These rocks are now included in the Staffordian Series, and include the Keele Group, the Newcastle-under- 

 Lyme Group, and the Etruria Marls. 



