LIAS IN SHROPSHIRE AND CHESHIRE. 



25 



unpublished species first brought to notice by my visit to Brora, Sutherlandshire, the 

 strata of which distant tract, containing a sort of coal, were by means of their organic 

 remains identified with similar carbonaceous strata of the Oolitic system in the eastern 

 moorlands of Yorkshire. Had the Lias of this Salopian tract contained coal as good as 

 that found in the Oolitic formations of Whitby and of Brora, it might have been ques- 

 tionable whether in a country so distant from any deposit of the old or true coal, it 

 would not have been worth extracting ; but no trials have brought to light any portion 

 of combustible matter, whether termed lignite or impure coal, worthy of the name of a 

 bed 1 . 



To convince the resident gentry and speculators of Northern Salop who are not 

 aware of the value of the evidence afforded by organic remains, of the hopelessness of 

 their search after coal, I beg to repeat, that the black shale is underlaid by the saliferous 

 marls of the New Red Sandstone. In addition to the instances already given I may 

 state, that the sinkings of Sir Corbet Corbet, at Adderley, opposite Kent's Rough, and 

 near the northern edge of the basin, proved this fact ; for upon piercing the black 

 shale to the depth of 300 feet a brine spring was reached ! A similar infraposition of 

 saliferous marls may be seen at Moss Hill farm, near Audlem. Lastly, an examination 

 of the annexed wood-cut, and the map will show, that the basin not only rests upon marls 

 and other strata of the New Red System, but is surrounded by them, and a reference to the 

 general tabular view attached to this work will prove that the whole of the enormously 

 thick system of the New Red Sandstone (as fully expanded here as in any part of En- 

 gland,) lies between the black shale and the true coal measures. If coal really passes be- 

 neath any portion of this country, it ought to be first sought for at points nearer to Oswestry, 

 Chirk, Wrexham, Shrewsbury, Wellington, Newport, and Madeley in Staffordshire, in 

 short, towards the outcrop of the coal measures which rise nearly on all sides from 

 beneath the New Red Sandstone. Now as this tract of Cloverly and Prees, lies in the 

 centre of the circle mentioned, it is necessarily the very spot in the whole area where 

 the search for coal is the most hopeless, being that where the overlying deposits are 

 thickest. (See Plate 29. fig. 23.) 



W.S.W. E.N.E. 4. 



Oswestry. Prees. North of Staffordshire. 



a. Marlstone. b. Lower Lias. c. Saliferous Marl, &c. d. New Red Sandstone. 



e. Calcareous Conglomerate and Lower New Red Sandstone. f. Coal Measures. 



1 The working of the Brora Coal, though undertaken with the greatest spirit and continued at considerable 

 expense by the late Duke of Sutherland, has now been entirely abandoned, owing to itspyritous impure quality 

 and consequent tendency to spontaneous combustion. (See Geol. Trans., vol. ii. p. 293.) 



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