148 



VALUE OF THE OSWESTRY COAL-FIELD. 



beneath the Lower New Red Sandstone of the plains north and east of Oswestry, since 

 the beds of coal recently proved at the Drillt beneath that formation, instead of thick- 

 ening on the dip, have been found to thin out ; the upper coal, which was four feet at 

 the Old Works near the outcrop, being only two and three, and the six-feet coal being 

 reduced to three feet. (See Section, PI. 30. fig. 14.) The inferior quality and thinness 

 of the coal are therefore sufficient to check enterprise ; and finally it must be remem- 

 bered, that this tract is the southern termination of a great carbonaceous zone, the 

 richest parts of which are in Flintshire and Denbighshire 1 ; and that the coal-bearing 

 strata, gradually diminishing in size and deteriorating in quality as they pass southward, are 

 found at Oswestry in the thin and slightly productive condition above described. 



1 Mr. Bowman of Gresford, with the assistance of his friends Mr. Kyrke of Glascoed and Mr. Pickering, has 

 furnished me with a synopsis of the principal coal seams in Flintshire and Denbighshire. At Mostyn there 

 are twelve beds of workable coal in a thickness of about two hundred yards of measures, the uppermost of 

 which is a cannel coal eight feet thick, the others varying from one to fifteen feet. At Bagillt, south-east of 

 Holywell, there are five beds, but three only have been worked. At Flint, Coed Talwin, and other places south 

 of Mold, there are three beds only of coal, but this is owing to the rise of the limestone and millstone grit, 

 the upper coal measures having been denuded. Here also the chief coal is fifteen feet thick : south of the 

 Hope mountain, and extending south to Wrexham, the measures on both sides of a great north and south fault 

 contain ten beds of coal, of the following names and dimensions, in descending order : 



yds. ft. in. 



~Lower Drowzey, or stinking coal 0 2 3 



Small coal, excellent quality 0 2 5 



Drowsall coal, excellent quality 1 0 0 



Powch coal, average quality 110 



Two-yard coal, very good 2 0 0 



Crank coal, hot but not brilliant 0 2 3 



Brassy coal, excellent for making iron 12 0 



Black bed coal , 0 1 6 



Main coal, of first quality 4 0 9 



, Yard coal, good quality, not much worked ............ 100 



General Rejections on the origin of the Salopian Coal-fields. 



The previous chapters will I trust have convinced the reader, that the various coal- 

 fields of Shropshire have been accumulated under different conditions. That of Shrews- 

 bury, for example, being charged with remains exclusively of terrestrial or freshwater 

 origin, is supposed to have been formed by rivers emptying themselves into lakes ; that 

 of Coal Brook Dale, containing a mixture of freshwater and terrestrial with marine 

 remains, is referred to an estuary origin ; whilst a third class like the Titterstone Clee, 

 or the Oswestry fields, in which nearly al] the animal remains are marine, were probably 

 formed on the shores of an open sea, or in bays of salt water into which plants had been 

 drifted from the adjacent lands. 



