Page:The South Staffordshire Coalfield - Joseph Beete Jukes - 1859.djvu/104

86 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:—

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