FOREST OF WYRE AND TITTERSTONE GLEE HILL COAL FIELDS. 1017 



of the Geological Survey, in 1891, 1906, and 1914. Dr Kidston has examined these 

 fossils and has enabled us further to elucidate the Coal Measure horizons present in 

 the district, and to clear up certain doubtful points as regards the geographical 

 distribution of the various subdivisions. 



T7'impley District. — On the southern margin of the Old Ked Sandstone inlier of 

 Trimpley, the plants from a locality 300 yards west of Biddings Barn, on the 

 northern edge of North Wood, indicate that the beds are not lower than the 

 Westphalian. As the beds in question are only a few yards distant from the Lower 

 Old Red Sandstone which forms the floor on which the Coal Measures were deposited, 

 we may conclude that here the lowest Coal Measures present are Westphalian, and 

 that the Lower Coal Measures (Lanarkian Series) are absent. 



A little over half a mile farther south, the plants collected from a railway cutting 

 150 yards south-east of North wood House may be either Transition or Westphalian. 

 The beds are much farther removed from the Old Red Sandstone inlier, and are 

 therefore presumably much higher in the Coal Measure sequence than those of 

 Riddings Barn ; but their exact position in the sequence is not determinable from 

 the plants collected. 



SecMey Cliff. — On the western bank of the Severn, at Seckley Cottage, a mile 

 south of Upper Arley, the Coal Measures form a cliff, at the foot of which a coal 

 has been to some extent worked at the outcrop. This coal appears from strati- 

 graphical considerations to lie several hundred feet lower in the sequence than the 

 Spirorbis-limestone and the Main Sulphur Coal formerly worked at Button Oak, on 

 the high ground half a mile to the south-west. Plants collected from the cliff and 

 old spoil-banks show that the beds belong to the Westphalian Series, and thus 

 pertain to the Sweet Coal Group. 



Dowles Valley. — In the Dowles Valley, several exposures near Cooper's Mill have 

 yielded a further good assemblage of plants which Dr Kidston refers to a horizon 

 high in the Westphalian Series. This determination confirms the deduction made 

 on the evidence of the plants collected in 1895, and agrees with Dr Arber's 

 conclusion that the whole of the beds penetrated by the Alton No. 1 bore-hole, close 

 by, are referable to the Sweet Coal Group. Probably no great thickness of strata 

 intervenes between the Cooper's Mill beds and the Main Sulphur Coal formerly 

 worked at Button Oak. In these intervening beds the base of the Sulphur Coal 

 Group remains to be located, and the presence or absence of the Etruria Marls put 

 to the proof. Still farther up the valley, the plants from a locality at Furnace Mill 

 appear to place the beds in the Westphalian Series. About three-quarters of a mile 

 to the north-east, the Main Sulphur Coal, attended by a Spirorbis-limestone, was 

 worked on the higher ground at Kingswood and Winwoods. 



So far, then, as the present evidence goes, it confirms the conclusions I had 

 reached twenty years ago,* viz. that " the bulk of the ground along the Dowles 



* " A Contribution, etc.," 1895, p. 18. 



