GO 



THE GEOLOGIST. 



The clays or shales are more oddly named — Clunch ; Ground ; 

 Partings ; Binds ; Clod ; Shale ; Ponncil batt ; Table batt ; Pricking 

 and Blacktry. 



Ironstone beds rejoice in the appellations — Pennystone ; Brown- 

 stone ; Whitery ; Lambstone ; Blue flats ; Cakes ; Grains ; Gubbins ; 

 Ballstone ; Bindstone ; Silver thread ; Diamonds; Getting rock; and 

 " Poor Robins." 



The bad coals are — Bass ; Smntt ; Black bazil, &c. And every coal 

 bed has its name too. There are the — Top four-foot coal; Yard 

 coal ; Brook coal : Robin's ; Flying reed ; Deep coal ; Mealy grey 

 coal; White coal! Stone coal; Shallow coal; Old-man's coal; 

 " Heathen" coal ; Stinking coal ; Bazils ; Slipper coal ; Sawyer coal ; 

 and Bottom coal. 



I'm sure that is enough. Moreover, every district has its own 

 vocabulary. Only fancy what the Welsh must be ! 



But whatever be the kind of bed over the coal there is one invariable 

 rule below it. A bed of clay, called " fire clay" — a fine soft substance 

 useful for furnace-pots and furnace-bricks — occurs beneath every 

 seam. Sir William Logan, now at the head of the Geological Survey 

 in Canada, first found this out in Wales. It is the clue to the history 

 of coal ; and we shall have to refer to it again. 



Please to bear in mind that these layers or beds of coal are re - 

 markably regular. It is of the greatest consequence in mining that 

 they are so. If you find, for instance, that the Old Man's Coal is 

 always next to the " Heathen" Coal, and the " white coal" comes next 

 (I don't know that they do),' you are safe for the whole coal-field. 

 You have only to measure the distance between the Old Man and the 

 Heathen, and so on, and you know whereabouts to expect them in 

 any other part of the field. 



We have reason to believe too that every bed of coal and ironstone has 

 some peculiarity in its fossil contents ; and if this should turn out to 

 be true, we shall have a still better means of ascertaining in what 

 part of a coal basin our pits may be sunk — a very important point — 

 for if our mines should happen to lie upon the lowest beds of the 

 whole series, (say at h, in the woodcut, p. 9,) it would be a 

 rather unprofitable investment to buy ground there. But if on the 

 contrary, we are likely to be on the "Top coal," why then, work 

 away merrily'; we may say, altering Mrs. Hemans' sense, but not 

 her words, — 



" Yet more — the depths have more ; — what wealth untold 

 Far down, and shining in then stillness lies," 



I will not add another line — for geology does not admit of parodies, 

 and good sense refuses them. 



Well, now, we've found our coal. The next thing is to get it. 

 England requires for home consumption and for export nearly seventy 

 million tons per annum ; and if you put ?11 her coal-fields together 

 they do but measure nine or ten thousand square miles. Yet 



