CHAPTER XII 



CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM {continued). 



Coal-field of Newent. — Carboniferous Limestone of South Wales and Monmouth- 

 shire ; and organic remains of the formation. 



On the Coal-field of Newent, Gloucestershire. 



QUITTING the region of Shropshire, and passing from the edges of the North Welsh 

 coal-field to those of the great South Welsh basin, let us pause for a few moments by 

 the way, to examine a small carboniferous tract near Newent in Gloucestershire, al- 

 though its strata are of so little value, as scarcely to entitle them to the appellation 

 of a coal-field. The New Red being here almost everywhere conterminous with 

 the Old Red Sandstone, these coal measures can only be detected rising to the surface 

 in such thin stripes or patches along this junction-line, that it is scarcely possible to 

 indicate them. Wherever they exist, they may in general description, be said to be 

 covered by the New, and to rest upon the Old Red Sandstone. (See Section, PI. 30. 

 fig. 10.) 



At Lower House to the West, and at Boulsdon to the South of Newent, there were formerly 

 coal-pits, but they have been abandoned many years, and the information now to be derived from 

 a few old workmen is scanty and imperfect. At Lower House it appears, that the pits were 

 50 yards deep, commencing in the New Red Sandstone. The measures dipped about 25° to the 

 N.E., E., and S.E., and were affected by numerous faults, the largest of which occasioned a throw 

 of 25 yards. The section passed through 



feet. 



New Red Sandstone 21 



Whitish clay *] 



Hard whitish sandstone with plants ... ^ a ^ out j 0Q 



Reddish-brown clunch i 



Shale, &c J 



Coal 7 



And beneath this coal were 16 feet composed of shale, with three other seams of coal, viz., 2 feet, 1 foot 6 inches, 1 foot 

 2 inches ; the lowermost being sulphureous. 



In this sinking, the overlying Red Sandstone is said to have partaken of all the flexures of the 

 underlying coal-measures 1 . At Hill House Colliery, a little to the north of Lower House, and 



1 See previous observations on this point, p. 51, &c. 



