18 
red sandstone area surrounding tlie central coal-fields of England, 
many miles removed from these fields, the beds that elsewhere 
rest directly on the coal measures are brought to the surface 
by faults. 
If the estimates of thickness be correct, then no wise man 
would sink in this area on the new red marl, because, before 
he could reach the coal measures, he would have to penetrate 
the aggregate thickness of three formations, viz., new red marl, 
upper new red sandstone, and the lower new red sandstone or 
Permian. 
To the unpractised eye, these last seem ordinary new red 
sandstone. In this area they were confounded with it. P>ut 
a rigid geological examination has shown that they belong to a 
lower set of beds, and that faults at certain points raise them to 
the surface ; and these may be proper places in which to sink 
in the hope of finding coal, because the concealed coal measures 
must also be raised nearer the surface by the faults, and there- 
fore in the search, we escape many hundreds of feet of rock that 
elsewhere overlie the strata to be sunk in. 
There is yet another point of interest in connexion with this 
subject. I have stated, that the new red sandstone proper 
rests unconformably on the lower new red strata. It therefore 
often happens, that overlapping the latter it rests directly on the 
coal measures. The result is, that at a distance from the car- 
boniferous strata, it is possible to estimate the probabilities as to 
whether in sinking through new red sandstone, we might reach 
the coal measures without the intervention of thick masses of 
lower new red or Permian strata. 
These are questions that daily assume a higher importance. 
The attention of proprietors and miners already begins to be 
directed to them, hitherto in general without much effect, chiefly 
for want of accurate geological information. The value of land 
will be materially affected in certain districts by the information 
yielded by such maps and sections. 
If you compare a distorted section with one across the same 
country drawn on a true scale, you will readily perceive one of 
the causes of the indefinite ideas often entertained on such 
subjects. In one the distances arc diminished, the heights 
