92 



COLLIERIES NEAR SHREWSBURY. 



Passage from 

 Lower New- 

 Red into Coal 

 measures. 



sloping away from the Lyth Hill promontory, so that between the coal works at Coed 

 Way and these near Shrewsbury the coal strata dip on three sides towards a common 

 centre. The coal which is worked at Uffington, three miles north-north-east of Shrews- 

 bury, is a beautiful illustration of the manner in which this zone, following the sinuo- 

 sities of the more ancient rocks, reappears at intervals upon their flanks, for there the 

 same purple Cambrian sandstone, as in the Longmynd, Lyth Hill, &c, (the most 

 ancient rock in this region and underlying the whole of the Silurian System) rises in 

 an insulated mural form constituting Haughmond Hill. The little patch of coal mea- 

 sures, occupying the low ground between that hill and the river Severn, contains the usual 

 freshwater limestone of the district, associated, however, with one seam only of work- 

 able coal, as proved by the following section. 



Shaft section of the Coal-pits at Uffington. 



Yards, ft. in. 



Drift clay with boulders or red gravel.... 14 0 0 



f Red clods 1 5 10 



Poundstone 10 0 



Red clods 2 0 0 



Grey clods, dark colours above, light below 2 2 0 



Poundstone , 10 0 



Red curly rock...... 11 Q 



Grey clod 2 0 0 



Red rock with grey partings 2 2 0 



Poundstone with some red (red marly clay) 1 1 1 



.Bassy coal (mush or impure coal) 0 0 6 



Poundstone 10 0 



Coal 0 0 6 



Poundstone both tender and strong 4 0 0 



Hard white and brown rocks (sandstone) 3 0 0 



Clumper beds, Rattlers (concretions), red and white clod 5 2 0 



Mush, or impure coal 0 1 0 



Limestone of similar structure and containing the same organic remains as that 



of Pontesbury 10 0 



Reds 5 0 0 



Blue clods and roof of coal with plants 7 0 0 



Coal 1 0 0 



Poundstone , 2 10 



Beneath this lies a whitish sandstone rock with brown stripes and other measures overlying the 

 only bed of good coal, which is worked at a depth of thirty-five yards below the limestone. 



In the works at Uffington an effort was lately made to find the lowest of the two coals, 

 which in so many parts of this district occur below the limestone ; but like the upper 

 coal it proved to have thinned out and disappeared, for at a few yards beneath the coal, 



1 In this and other sections descriptive of shafts the sides of which were not open to inspection when I ex- 

 amined this country, I am compelled to use the terminology of the miners. The red clods here alluded to are 

 the argillaceous (often saponaceous) marls, which form the beds of passage from the Lower New Red into the 

 carboniferous strata. 



