ROBERTS — ON THE WYRE FOREST COAL-FIELD. 



421 



a space between 4 and 23 and more miles ; the pressure, at an average 

 velocity of seven miles per second, being 22 atmospheres per square- 

 foot. Benzenberg has already pointed out the analogy of this process 

 with the apparatus for lighting matches by sudden and violent com- 

 pression of air; and indeed the passage of a body through air at such 

 a rate cannot be conceived without an enormous compression, and 

 consequent development of heat and light. The air is forced on 

 every side out of the meteors orbit, in directions perpendicular to it y 

 and must round itself in a spherical or ovoid manner from behind the 

 rapidly progressing meteor. As Professor Smith supposes, the sound 

 is not a consequence of explosion, but the clash produced by the air 

 suddenly filling up the vacuum left by the meteor behind it, and 

 renewed every moment as it continues its career. Dr. Haidinger and 

 Professor Smith, with many other naturalists, agree in the supposition 

 that meteorites are fragments of larger solids pre-existing in the 

 cosmic spaces ; the hypothesis of their existing originally in a state of 

 igneous fusion being in open contradiction to the generally accepted 

 hypothesis of an extremely low temperature (100° C.) of these spaces. 

 The tufaceous aspect of meteorites seems rather to indicate an origi- 

 nally pulverulent state, in which crystallogenetic forces were called 

 into activity, and modified or counterbalanced by external circum- 

 stances, in a mode analogous to the formation of the sphsgrosideritic 

 septaria occurring in argillaceous strata. The first effect of pressure 

 from without must have been the formation of a solid, superficial 

 crust, during whose complete solidification lateral pressure, and the 

 descending movement of heavier particles, would call into action 

 thermal, electrical, and chemical influences. A similar process going 

 on within the external crust may possibly occasion real explosions. 

 The chapter on meteorites has been most ably and profoundly treated 

 by M. E. E. Schmidt ("Lehrbuch der Meteorologie"), G. Karsten 

 ("Algenieine Encyclopaedic der Physik," Leipzig, 1860), and F. C. 

 Naumann (" Lehrbuch der Geognosie.") 



DEEP SINKING FOR COAL IN THE WYRE FOREST 

 COAL-FIELD. 



By George E. Roberts. 



Mention is made by Mr. Hull, F.G.S., in the second edition of his 

 useful work on the coal-fields of England, of a deep sinking for coal 

 on the estate of the Arley Pottery and Fire brick Company, situated 

 at Shatterford, five miles north of Bewdley. This work, though 

 unfortunately ending in failure, and leading to the abandonment of 

 the enterprise, deserves a prominent position in the annals of coal- 

 mining, chiefly because the section obtained may be regarded as an 

 index to nearly the whole of the coal measures of the forest of Wyre. 

 Through the courtesy of Mr. John M. Fellows, manager of works to 

 the late company, I am enabled to place on record the particulars of 



