At Shut End the beds below the Sulphur coal are almost all fireclay, but 10 or 12 feet of it is described as gritty, and at a depth varying from 15 to 30 feet is a small coal 1 foot 6 inches thick.
At the Oak Farm colliery there is a coal 1 foot 6 inches thick, 39 feet below the White stone measures.
At a deep sinking of Mr. Benjamin Gibbons's, at the Level colliery north-east of Brierley Hill, there were found below the Sulphur coal 35 feet of measures, of which 16 were rock; and below these was a small coal 1½ foot thick, which likewise may represent the New mine coal.
At the Ley's iron-works, north-west of Brierley Hill. Mr. Firmstone sank 280 feet below the Thick coal. Below what is probably the Sulphur coal he met with 22 feet of measures, containing 11 feet of rock, when he came on a "rubble" coal 1 foot 2 inches thick, which may perhaps be the New mine.
South of these two places no deep trials were ever made, except in the instance of the Blackheath colliery, south of Rowley Regis; and there nothing was found that could be at all supposed to represent the New mine coal, or any of the beds below it. (See Vertical sections, sheet 17 and 18.)
25. (I.9.) Measures between the New mine and Fire-clay coals, containing occasionally the Fire-clay Balls ironstone.—There is scarcely any group of beds in the whole coal-field which exhibits such rapid and strongly-marked variations as this group. Even in the limited district of the Stow Heath and Priestfield collieries, between Wolverhampton and Bilston, these beds vary from 2 or 3 feet of "binds" to 39 feet of "rock," with a little fire-clay above and below it (Vertical Sections, sheet 16. No. 10). Over the whole district in which the two coals occur, the changes in the beds between them are equally marked, even in closely adjacent localities.[1]
For instance, at the Chillington colliery they contain only batt and fire-clay, 4 to 9 feet thick; while a mile south of it, at Cockshutts, the beds are—
| FT. | IN. | |
| Clod | 5 | 0 |
| Rock | 26 | 7 |
| Fire-clay | 3 | 0 |
| 34 | 7 |
At Ettingshall Lodge colliery they have—
| FT. | IN. | |
| Batty fire-clay | 5 | 9 |
| Rock and rock-binds | 18 | 6 |
| Dark clunch | 3 | 7 |
| 27 | 10 |
While at Ettingshall Lane colliery, one mile south, there are only 2 feet of fire-clay.
- ↑ Mr. Lionel Brough. Inspector of Collieries, informs me that at Rose Hill colliery there was only 6 inches between the New Mine and Fireclay coals, the space being occupied by the Fireclay Balls ironstone.
