This exhibits very clearly what has been before alluded to in describing these beds, the gradual thickening of them towards the north, the total section being 150 feet greater at one end than the other.
If we were to take the thickness of the beds from the base of the Thick coal to the base of the Bottom coal, we should get precisely similar results as a whole. As, however, we possess 30 sections, which include the necessary data for the Bottom coal, while we have only 13 for the Blue flats, we should expect to find one or two of them a little out of their place, owing to partial and strictly local thickening or thinning of a few beds simultaneously, while generally these variations in thickness balanced each other. I add this list arranged in order of thickness:—
FEET. | ||||
[1]1. | The Graveyards | 120 | The south-western district. | |
2. | The Level | 133 | ||
3. | Upper Gornal | 133 | ||
4. | Foxyards | 159 | Between Dudley and Wednesbury. | |
5. | Tipton Green | 160 | ||
6. | Coneygree | 167 | ||
7. | Tipton Moat | 167 | ||
8. | Bradley Lodge | 176 | All between the latitudes of Coseley and Bilston. | |
9. | Ettingshall, near Cann-lane | 176 | ||
10. | Highfields | 194 | ||
11. | Highfields | 196 | ||
12. | Highfields | 203 | ||
13. | Deepfields | 205 | ||
14. | Bradley | 213 | ||
15. | Dockmeadow | 216 | ||
16. | Priestfield Furnace | 225 | All on or about the latitude of Bilston. | |
17. | Bilston Meadow | 228 | ||
18. | Priestfield Colliery | 229 | ||
19. | Friezland | 232 | ||
20. | Crabtree Piece | 240 | ||
21. | The Wallbutts | 242 | ||
22. | Chillington Colliery | 250 | All north of Bilston, near Wolverhapton. | |
23. | Stowheath | 253 | ||
24. | Rough Hills | 256 | ||
25. | Bentley Heath | 263 | Still farther north. | |
26. | Bentley Hall | 265 | ||
[2]27. | Lower Bradley | 266 | South of Bilston. | |
[3]28. | Ettingshall Lodge | 270 | Due west of Bilston. | |
29. | Bentley, northern part | 276 | North of 26. | |
30. | Bloxwich | 291 | North of 29. |
It follows, from an inspection of this list, that our identification of the Bottom coal in the three sections in the district south and west of Dudley, namely, Nos, 1, 2, and 3, that identification being founded only on the details of the sections, is rendered still more probable, from its harmonizing so well with our general results. It agrees, also, well with the statements before given as to the splitting up and separation of the Thick coal towards the north, and the coming in of other beds in that direction not known towards the south, and shows that the
- ↑ In geographical order the Graveyards would come between Nos. 2 and 8.
- ↑ The abnormal position of this section is due to a local thickening of the beds between the Thick and Heathen coals.
- ↑ Due to a local increase in the thickness of several of the measures, which is compensated for in the beds below the Bottom coal, as in the Blue flats list this section takes its proper geographical position