agrees very closely with the observed inclination in all the workings of the mines.
It is then highly probable that the whole of the Coal-measures will sweep pretty steadily across Cannock Chase up to Brereton.
Old shallow workings have been carried on hero and there about Cannock Chase, of which the following records were formerly gained and published in the first edition of this Memoir.
At Cannock mill, just east of Cannock, there were some coal-pits a few years back worked by Lord Hatherton, and called the Rumour Hill pits, of which I got the following section from the recollection of Abraham Ward, well-sinker, at Cannock:—
| FT. | IN. | FT. | IN. | ||
| 1. | Red marl | 6 | 0 | – | |
| 2. | White binds | 12 | 0 | – | |
| 3. | Cannel coal | 3 6 | |||
| 4. | Bind measures | 24 | 0 | – | |
| 5. | Rock | 3 | 0 | – | |
| 6. | Two-foot coal | 2 | 0 | ||
| 7. | Binds, rock binds, clunch, &c. | 72 | 0 | – | |
| 8. | Coal | 4 | 6 | ||
| 9. | Measures | 90 | 0 | – | |
| 10. | Stinking coal | 5 | 0 | ||
| 207 | 0 | 15 | 0 | ||
| 15 | 0 | ||||
| 222 | 0 | ||||
We cannot with any degree of certainty identify any of these beds with any of those at Wyrley, but Mr. Gilpin believes them to belong to the upper Coal-measures of Wyrley.
Just south of the hamlet of Hednesford there are some old coal workings, of which I got the following section from W. Haycock, an old collier at Brereton:—
| FT. | IN. | FT. | IN. | ||
| 1. | Gravel | 20 | 0 | – | |
| 2. | Clod | 12 | 0 | – | |
| 3. | Yellow rock | 42 | 0 | – | |
| 4. | Clod | 10 | 0 | – | |
| 5. | Coal | 7 | 0 | ||
| 6. | Clod containing good ironstone | 90 | 0 | – | |
| 7. | Coal | 4 | 0 | ||
| 185 | 0 | 11 | 0 | ||
| 11 | 0 | ||||
| 185 | 0 | ||||
Some new shafts were being sunk by Mr. Piggott just to the eastward of Hednesford, in the year 1858, in which they had found what they believed to be the Wyrley Bottom or Eight-foot coal at a depth of 300 feet. It was there only 6 foot thick, and 60 feet below it there was a Four-foot coal, which might possibly be the Bentley Hey coal, while 90 feet over it, or at a depth of 210 feet from the surface, there was another coal of 4½ feet thick, believed to be the Wyrley Cannel coal. They had also got the black nodular ironstone full of tubular cavities, from which at Wyrley it is called the Grub ironstone.
