82 
GEOLOGY OE WYKE EOKEST. 
Coal seams occur beneath, but are worked only in a few parts, as the 
coal is said to be of an inferior quality. It is as well perhaps for the 
lover of nature that this is so, for if it paid to extract the coal the 
beautiful glades and valleys would soon be converted into an unsightly 
array of collieries and cinder heaps. Some of our loveliest English 
scenery occurs on the coal measures, and our Staffordshire Black 
Country was no doubt not less beautiful till its aspect was marred 
by the sinkings for the rich treasures beneath. 
The beds which appear at the surface in Wyre Forest consist of 
white and brown sandstone, interbedded with thin layers of brown 
shale. Since their deposition they have been subjected to much dis¬ 
turbance, and in many places very contorted sections may be seen, and 
in walking along the railway, which runs through the forest, the beds 
shown in the cuttings often appear bent up and down like huge waves. 
In the north part of the district volcanic forces have been in action; 
at Shatterford, for instance, near Arley, a long dyke of basalt has broken 
through the sandstones and is quarried for road-metal. It is very 
similar to the llowley Bag of our pavements, and is known by the 
local name of Dim Stone. This name, derived from the Celtic word for 
black, is no doubt given to it on account of its colour. I have, how¬ 
ever, seen it written Jew Stone and Dew Stone, but I think the one 
I have given is the most correct. A similar mass is found in the coal 
measures of the Titterstone Clee Hills to the west of the forest, where 
it is known by the same name. 
The sandstones occur all over the forest, but I do not know of any 
outcrops of the coal itself, or its accompanying black shale or clay. 
The fossils found in these rocks consist almost entirely of vegetable 
remains of the same species of plants as coal itself is composed of, 
showing that the forests which formed the coal seams could not have 
been far away when these rocks were deposited as sediment, and that 
the rivers running through them bore on their waters leaves, branches, 
and ferns, which sunk down with the sand and mud. The best 
collecting grounds are the thin bands of soft shale, which are found on 
the banks on the side of the road which runs along Dowles Brook 
from the main road to Cooper’s Mill. This bed is absolutely full of 
plant remains, principally consisting of ferns and calamites. The 
ferns {Nenropteris and Fecopterh) have their vein markings as perfect 
and distinct as when alive. 
The calamite was a reed, similar to our modern Equisetum or 
Horsetail, which flourished in the Coal Period. Vast numbers of their 
liattened stems are found in these shales, together with their charac¬ 
teristic foliage of narrow-leaved whorls. 
In the coarser sandstone the plants are rarer but larger, consisting 
of thick calamite stems, and of another common coal plant—the 
Lepidodendron. This was a tall tree, allied to our humble club moss, 
and the diamond-shaped leaf-scars have caused it to be called by 
people of the neighbourhood “Nail rod." It seems evident that the 
