discover any relation between it and any of those we have examined in the southern part of the field. Everything, however, seems to confirm the conclusion formerly arrived at, that, speaking generally, the Brereton coals are the same as the Wyrley coals, a little more split up and separated from each other. It is remarkable, too, that the total amount of the Brereton coals, when added together, namely, 49 feet, is nearly the same with their total amount at Wyrley, namely, 46 feet.[1]
The Lickey Coal-measures.—Before closing the account of the Coal-measures it is necessary just to mention two little outlying districts of that formation on the south of the field,—one is near the Lickey Hill, where sinall patches of Coal-measures with one or two little bands of coal were found on each side of the quartz ridge, near the New Rose and Crown.
The Stonehouse Coal-measures.—Another is near the Stone House, south-west of Harborne. At this latter locality Mr. Flavell sank 240 feet through true Coal-measures, grey shales, with nodules of ironstone, but without traversing any bed of coal. It is obviously impossible to say what part of the general series of Coal-measures those found at these two localities belong to.
CHAPTER VII.
Description of the Rocks—continued.
5. The Silurian Rocks.
Of the Silurian formation we have, in or near the South Staffordshire coal-field, parts of three different subdivisions:—
1st. A portion of the Ludlow rocks containing a band of limestone, believed to be the same as the Aymestry limestone.
2nd. The Wenlock and Dudley rocks entire.
3rd. A portion of the Llandovery (formerly considered part of the Caradoc) sandstone.
These rocks have been so fully described by Sir R. I. Murchison in his "Silurian System" that there remains but little to say respecting them.
Ludlow and Sedgley rocks.—The mass of the Ludlow and Wenlock rocks, or, as they might here be called, the Sedgley and Dudley rocks, consists of a brown or blueish grey argillaceous shale, always very smooth and compact, thick-bedded and regularly jointed. In the upper portion is a band of dark brown nodular and concretionary limestone, some 20 or 25 feet in thickness. It is locally called the "Brown lime." From its containing the Pentamerus Knightii, and other fossils, and from its position, it is with great probability identified with the Aymesy limestone. This limestone shows itself at Sedgley, at Turner's
- ↑ Near Dudley, the total amount of all the coals would be about 57 feet. The richest part of the field in amount of coal-beds, both absolutely and still more in proportion to the whole thickness of the measures in which they lie is between Wolverhampton and Bilston, where the lower coals are becoming rapidly thicker, and the Thick coal is still nearly unbroken and undiminished. The total amount of the coals in a vertical section there would in some places be upwards of 70 feet, all within a depth of about 300 feet from the surface.
