142 COAL WORKS PASSING THROUGH THE LOWER NEW RED SANDSTONE. 



iittle value. Near their outcrop these seams are separated from each other by about 

 twelve yards of strata composed of shale and clod, with thin courses of sandstone. 

 The roof of the coal abounds in impressions of plants. The coal has, however, been 

 long ago exhausted in such situations, as, for example, in the hills of Treflach, where 

 the millstone grit rises from beneath it, but shafts were more recently at work in the 

 lower grounds between that place and the town of Oswestry, principally on the sides of 

 the depression in which the river Mwrda flows. The poor quality of these coal seams 

 is the chief reason why they have been wrought to so little profit, but other causes of 

 failure have arisen from the very dislocated nature of the strata, and the difficulties 

 attending the drainage of the pits. 



The coal having been exhausted, and the works failing near the basset, trials have 

 recently been made much further on the dip, and the coal has been won in two shafts, 

 both of which passed through a thick cover of the Lower New Red Sandstone before 

 the slightest indication of carbonaceous matter was met with. One of these shafts is 

 at the Drillt, on the west side of the road from Oswestry to Llanymynech. The other 

 is on the east side of the same road, and on the grounds of Mr. Parker of Sweeny Hall 1 . 

 As both these works were commenced during my visits to this country, I had an oppor- 

 tunity of examining the overlying strata as they were thrown up around the pit mouths, 

 and they consisted exclusively of different varieties of red and spotted sandstone and 

 shale, quite undistinguishable from the ordinary beds of the Lower New Red Sandstone, 

 which has been so fully described in the fourth chapter. No exact record has been 

 preserved of the section of these beds at the first-mentioned pit, but at the new shaft 

 on the Sweeny Hall estate, the following was the order. The thickness of the overlying 

 red rock was less at the Drillt pit. 



yds. ft. in. 



a. Soil and embankment "1 _ . , f 4 0 0 



J.Gravd Uperftcal ( g q 



detritus. 



c. Loam, strong clay, and delf.. j I 7 0 0 



d. Red crunch 4 2 0 



e. Red bind 12 1 0 



/. Soft sandstone 0 1 6 



g. Red bind 11 1 6 



h. Red clunch 12 0 0 



i. Hard grey sandstone 10 0 



Red bind 5 1 6 



Jc. Red clunch 5 1 6 



I. Red bind 3 1 6 



m. Brown bind with ironstone 5 1 6 



n. Red bind 5 0 0 



yds. ft. in. 



o. Red clunch 1 0 0 



p. Brown bind with seams of sandstone 3 0 0 



q. Greenish sandstone 3 2 0 



r. Strong red bind 4 1 0 



s. Red, greenish and white fine-grained sand- 1 



stone I 2 10 



t. Red, greenish, and grey hard sandstone... J 



u. Red sand rock 2 16 



v. Brown clunch 3 0 6 



w. Red mixed clunch 110 



x. Red mixed rock and clunch alternating,.... 18 0 0 



y. Shale and faint traces of coal 0 0 0 



Total thickness of overlying New) llg j 0 

 Red Sandstone / 



1 These examinations were made when on a visit to my friend Mr. Parker, of Sweeny Hall, to whom I am 

 very much indebted for facilitating my inquiries in the neighbourhood of Oswestry. 



