FORMATION OF THE SOCIETY : UNPUBLISHED RECORDS. 
21 
The object of Mr. Henry Briggs's paper was to prove the non- 
identity of the seams of coal now working under the names of the 
Haigh Moor and Rothwell Haigh, or Middleton, which have hitherto 
been thought by many practical men to be the same. For this pur- 
pose, Mr. Briggs had prepared a map, on a large scale, of the country 
in the neighbourhood of Leeds and Wakefield, on which were shown 
the outbreaks of the various rock formations, between which the 
different beds of coal are found, and, in the course of his observa- 
tions, exhibited sections of the country in several directions to 
exemplify his line of argument. He first adduced tlie Flockton bed 
as an intermediate coal, easily recognised in different localities, and 
attempted to prove that the Haigh Moor lies above, and the Rothwell 
Haigh below that particular seam. With this view, he traced the 
Flockton coal through a large district, and rendered certain its 
identity by several facts, and by the production of fossil shells which 
are found immediately above this seam ; then by a section of nine 
miles of the country easterly from the village of Middleton to Mr. 
Fenton's colliery near Xewmarket, and afterwards by another section 
from Dewsbury to Lee Fair, he showed that the Haigh Moor coal 
is situated about 100 yards above the Flockton. After tracing the 
Flockton coal as far as Drighlington and Gildersome, Mr. Briggs 
gave a section of about six miles of the country from those places to 
Middleton and Rothwell Haigh, by which he showed that the seam 
known by both these latter names, is situated about 80 yards heloiv 
the Flockton bed ; and that, therefore, the two seams under considera- 
tion must be totally distinct, and about 180 yards apart. In the 
course of his observations, Mr. Briggs also exhibited a diagram of a 
distraction or throw, existing in the Haigh Moor coal, and combatted 
the formerly received opinion of its being a throw down of this coal, 
as the inclination of this distraction affords good evidence that it 
is upwards ; and that the deep coal working on the opposite side, is 
an entirely different bed. He also submitted for inspection an 
interesting section of the strata in Earl Fitzwilliam's property, near 
Rotherham, with an addition of a deeper series in the vicinity of 
Halifax, to a total depth of 930 yards, containing 21 workable seams 
of coal, and an aggregate thickness of 73 feet ; and concluded by 
