COAL MEASURES IN THE SOUTH-EAST OF ENGLAND. 23 
tertiary strata and the chalk, to a depth of 1,138 ft.* Again, 
under the same strata at Ostend, palaeozoic rocks have been 
discovered at a depth of 985 ft.f On the English coast, a 
boring for water was carried at Harwich to a depth of 1,070 ft., 
also through tertiary strata and chalk, which were found to 
repose upon a fossiliferous slate belonging to one of the lower 
members of the carboniferous series. We can thus follow at 
intervals the same Tertiary and Secondary strata overlying 
unconformably Palaeozoic strata from Mons to London. The 
order of superposition and ascertained thickness of the several 
overlying formations and the nature of the fundamental rock 
at these points, is shown in the following table : — 
Kentish Town, 
London 
Harwich 
g 
6 
Calais 
Hames, near r 
Calais 
Anzin, near . 
Valenciennes 
f-i 
O 
& 
£ 
Ville Ponveraeul, 
near Mons 
Tertiary Strata 
Chalk .... 
Gault and Greensands . 
C = Coal Mea , 
OR = Ole 
324 
645 
144 
76 
888 
61 
682 
210 
93 
241 
762 
29 
6) 
629 ■ 
33 
265 
140 
390 
3 
54 
844 
138 
1,113 1,025 985 
OR ML OR 
sures, ML = Mo 
l Red Sandstone < 
1,032 668 
ML | OR C 
untain Limestone, 
or Devonian. 
533 
ML 
1,036 
C 
There is little doubt from all we now know that, owing to 
the absence of all the lower secondary formations the great 
Tertiary and Chalk plains of Belgium and French Flanders 
repose directly upon a floor of old Palaeozoic rocks, and that a 
like structure obtains in the London basin, at all events as 
far as London. The reasons we have for believing that the 
coal measures are associated with this palaeozoic base, we will 
give further on. 
In England, south of a line drawn from Bath to Stamford 
and Yarmouth, no true coal has yet been found. The whole 
area is occupied by strata newer than the Coal Measures, com- 
mencing with the Liassic and Oolitic series to the east of Bath, 
and ending with the Chalk and Tertiary series of the neigh- 
bourhood of London. Nevertheless, in consequence of certain 
presumed relations between the coal-fields of Belgium and of 
* u The Water-hearing Strata around London,” p. 208. 
t “Bull. Soc. PaRont. de Belgique,” Antwerp, 1859. At Yilvorde, near 
Brussels, Silurian or Devonian rocks were also met with at a depth of 
about 000 feet. 
