with bitumen; and at about seven fathom occurs a stony stratum, 
called, in that part of the country, cats-heads, from its containing the 
substances so called. This vein is two feet in thickness, and at 
about five fathom lower down is found, what is called the three-coal 
vein, formed of three different sorts of coal ; a stony bed, between 
one and two feet in thickness, being between the first and second vein, 
but the second vein seems to lie on the third, with hardly any parting 
between, being in the whole about three feet deep. At eight or ten 
fathom beneath this is the peacock or peaw vein of coal, the surface 
of which is marked with eyes, diversified with colours like the eyes 
of the peacock’s tail. The uppermost surface of this coal is inter- 
mingled with fossil shells, and the vestiges of fern. At about five or 
six fathoms beneath this vein, is the smith’s vein, so called from the 
use to which the coal is chiefly applied. A little lower than this is 
what is termed the shelly vein, and about ten inches lower than this 
is a vein too indifferent to be worked. 
At Wliitehaven, at the depth of forty-two fathoms, the roof of 
the coal is met with, being a black rock six inches thick, which 
has been cleft into regular squares about six inches in diameter, 
having an appearance similar to a piece of tesselated pavement. 
From AVhitehaven to below Thoresby are pits of coal of very con- 
siderable depth. At Newcastle-upon-Tyne, there is a coal-pit, 
which is an hundred and thirty fathoms in perpendicular depth, 
and which is worked, at that depth, five miles horizontally, quite 
across, beneath the Tyne, and under the opposite county of Dur- 
ham. In Northumberland towards the more eastern parts, are 
pits of coal at thirty fathoms depth. With respect to Cumber- 
land, the whole county seems to be a mine of coal and of black 
lead. 
At Newcastle-upon-Tyne, in Staffordshire also, and in some parts 
of Scotland, the strata are chiefly composed of stones fit to be applied 
to the purposes of building. In Yorkshire, throughout the whole 
