1018 DR R. KIDSTON, MR T..C. CANTRILL, AND MR E. B. L. DIXON. 



Valley, and for some distance on either side of it, . . . will prove to be Middle 

 Coal Measures." 



Highley Region. — In this region an extensive assemblage of fossil plants has 

 been obtained from the spoil-banks of the Highley and Kinlet Collieries. The 

 material consists of the debris removed during the working of what is known as the 

 Brooch Coal. At the Highley Colliery this seam, as I am informed by the manager, 

 Mr H. V. Eardley, to whom the Survey is indebted for permission to collect, is the 

 one called the Five-Foot Coal in the section of No. 1 shaft, in which it lies at 

 a depth of 875 feet 3 inches. 



The seam worked at the Kinlet Colliery is also called the Brooch, and is pre- 

 sumably the same as that worked at Highley. 



The fossil list is described by Dr Kidston as typically Westphalian — a conclusion 

 in harmony with Dr Arber's view. 



Mamble Region. — In this district no evidence has yet been obtained that any of 

 the coals worked belong to the Sweet Coal Group. As the coals are accompanied by 

 a /S^VorfoVlimestone and are more or less sulphurous, there is no reason to doubt 

 that they belong to the same group as the Sulphur Coals of the Highley district ; 

 and as they crop out around the margin of the Coal Measure tract within a short 

 distance of the Old Red Sandstone floor, there is no room for the Sweet Coal Group 

 to emerge from below them. These Sulphur Coals are, or have been till recently, 

 worked at the Bayton, Mamble, Pensax, Abberley, and other collieries. 



The seams are worked under different names at the several pits. At the Bayton 

 Colliery the seam is known as the Three-Quarter Coal ; at Mamble, as the Soft Coal ; 

 at Pensax, and at the Snead Farm, close by, as the Higher and Lower Coal ; and at 

 Abberley, as the Top and Bottom Coal. Whether all these are one and the same 

 coal it is not possible to say without a comparison of the shaft-sections, and as the 

 shafts are in many cases very old, sections are difficult to obtain and possibly not 

 very reliable. How far these coals correspond to the Main Sulphur Coal of the 

 Highley region is uncertain ; but their position not far below a Spirorbis-limestone 

 renders it probable that they occur at much the same horizon. The plant-remains 

 collected from the spoil-heaps at the collieries mentioned above indicate that the 

 beds belong to the Staffordian Series and are of Transition age, which agrees with 

 Dr Arber's opinion. 



Alveley. — In the hope of obtaining some plant-remains from the Keele Beds, a 

 quarry 300 yards north-west of Alveley Church was visited by Mr Pringle, but the 

 only specimen obtained was one referred by Dr Kidston to Sigillaria Brardi var. 

 denudata Gopp. pro sp. As the range of this plant extends from the Etruria Marls 

 to the Permian, its evidence does not carry us so far as the plants collected from 

 che Claverley boring (p. 1078). 



Summary. — We will now sum up our present knowledge of the geology of what 

 certainly appears to be one of the most puzzling Carboniferous districts in Britain. 



