51 
and as preparations for sinking a shaft near the Park are 
being made, it may interest you to know the probable amount 
of “potential energy 5 ’ lying under its surface. Tbe Haigh 
Moor and tbe deeper beds of coal are estimated to contain 
6,987,500 tons of coal ; and if tbis estimate be an approxi- 
mate yalue of tbe coal under tbe Park we must regard it as 
a vast magazine of power and wealth and of potential 
energy stored up in tbe bowels of tbe earth for tbe use and 
benefit of tbe inhabitants of Pontefract, and at a period of 
time immeasurably distant from our own. 
ESTIMATE OF TONS OF COAL UNDER THE PONTEFRACT PARK. 
Thickness 
of 
i Name 
of 
Depth 
in 
Description 
of Coal. 
Estimated pro- 
duce in Tons 
Bed. 
Bed. 
yards. 
per Acre. 
Ft. 
Ins. 
Tons. 
4 
4 
Haigh Moor 
Depth from H. M. to 
361 
First Class House Coal 
5,200 
4 
0 
Middleton Main ...... 
200 
House, Gas and Engine Coal...... 4,800 
Depth from M. M. to 
2 
0 
Beeston Coal 
Depth from B. C. to 
90 
House and Engine Coal 
2,400 
2 
4 
Low Moor Black Bed 
Depthfrom L. M. B. B. 
to Low Moor Better 
85 
House and Engine Coal 
2,800 
1 
6 
Bed 
Depth from L. M.B. B. 
40 
Best Smelting Coal ..... 
1,800 
2 
3 
to Halifax Hard Coal 
Depth from H. H. C. 
220 
House and Engine Coal 
2,700 
1 
6 
to Halifax Soft Coal 
20 
House and Engine Coal 
1,800 
17 11 
1,016 
Tons per 
Acre... 21,500 
100 Tons per Inch per Acre. 
Acres ... 325 
21,500 Tons per Acre. 
325 Acres. 
6,987,500 Tons under Park. Tons. . . 6,987,500 
I cannot but refer to George Stephenson, tbe railway 
engineer, whose philosophic mind, unaided by theoretical 
knowledge, rightly saw that coal was tbe embodiment of 
power originally derived from tbe sun. That small pencil of 
solar radiation which is arrested by our planet, and which 
