468 



THE GEOLOGIST. 



DEEP SINKING FOR COAL IN THE WYRE FOREST 

 COAL-FIELD. 



Additional Notes, by George E. Roberts. 



Some other memoranda which I find among my papers relating to 

 this work (for a section of which, with particulars of shaft-sinking, see 

 " Geologist 1 ' of last month) may not be unacceptable to your coal- 

 mining readers. 



The spot where the shaft was sunk was 476 feet above the level of 

 the Severn Valley Railway at Eymoor, and about 510 feet above the 

 ordinary height of the River Severn, from which it was distant about 

 two miles. The coal seam met with and worked at the depth of 176 

 yards, has in other parts of the coal-field a thickness of four feet. The 

 colliers regard it as a Flying Reed (red 1) coal. Two of the thin coal- 

 seams afterwards sunk through were entirely made up of the remains 

 of SigillarisB ; the coal, in consequence, was "long grained" and slaty. 

 These Sigillarian coals have a considerable range through the Wyre 

 Forest field, and in common with most of the other seams, crop out 

 along the western border. At the Baginswood pits, in the north-west 

 corner of the coal* field, the upper coal, two feet four inches in thickness, 

 worked by hand-draw, being only ten yards from surface, is a most 

 interesting seam, made up entirely of compressed Sigillarise. 



I have lately paid these pits a visit, and recommend any one who 

 is studying the structure of this ubiquitous coal -plant to get a block 

 of the Baginswood coal. At the Blakemoor and Gibhouse pits, in 

 another part of the Wyre Forest coal-field, a layer of black slaty coal, 

 half an inch in thickness, is seen to be wholly made up of the 

 compressed spore-cases of Lycopodiacse, probably belonging to Lepido- 

 dendron. Concerning these, Dr. Dawson, in his lately published 

 supplement to " Acadian Geology," thus speaks, while relating their 

 occurrence in the Lower Coal measures of Nova Scotia : — 



" There are also immense quantities of spherical or flattened car- 

 bonaceous bodies, resembling small shot, which I at one time supposed 

 to be spawn of fishes, but Dr. Hooker regards them as the spore-cases 

 of Lepidodendra." (p. 41.) 



The grey conglomerate (No. 53 of the sinkings) was a hard 

 compact rock, made up of variously sized angular fragments of green 

 and purple Cambrian Sandstones. This is the bed w r hich lies imme- 

 diately above the " thick" or ten-yard coal in South Staffordshire ; 

 but the place of that much-wished-for seam at Shatterford was taken 

 by twenty inches of anomalous " black and pink ground," followed by 

 5 feet of coarse fire-clay containing very few plant- remains. The 

 fire-clays sank through evidenced many distinct surfaces of estuarine 

 jungle ; but if forest-spoils were ever laid upon the argillaceous 

 deposits, after floods swept them away ; little remained to be changed 

 into coal. 



