Page:The South Staffordshire Coalfield - Joseph Beete Jukes - 1859.djvu/109

Rh, ranging, as it must do, for a distance of several miles between Bloxwich and Norton. .

If, on the other hand, it be supposed that the Wyrley and Essington coals belong to the beds below the Thick coal, then we have at the Essington colliery a thickness of nearly 600 feet of coal-measures full of good workable coals, to which we must add 280 feet for the depth of Mr. Gilpin's boring below the Three-foot coal which lies 40 feet below the so-called Bottom coal. We should then have a thickness of nearly 900 feet of coal measures below the Thick coal containing many thick and excellent coals, but totally different from the beds which are elsewhere to be found below the Thick coal, while in no other part of the coal-field is there a greater thickness below it than 400 or 500 feet at the very outside, the greatest known thickness being 840 feet.

This supposition then would involve still greater changes than are supposed on the other side, besides being opposed to all other species of evidence.

Details of Wyrley and Essington.—It would hardly be worth while to analyse the pit sections of Essington and Wyrley with the minuteness of detail which has been given to those of the central and southern portion of the field, even if we possessed the requisite materials. But as the coals themselves are the only beds of much value, there is little or no mention made of the nature of the substances that lie between them in most of the sections that have been supplied to us.

The ironstone that is considered of most value is one below the Yard coal of Wyrley, which is therefore called the Yard coal ironstone. Mr. Gilpin of Wedges Mills informs me that this resembles the black band of North Staffordshire, but that it varies a good deal in character. In one shaft the measure was 4 feet thick, the top stone being 4 inches, the middle 8 to 12 inches, and the bottom 3 to 5 inches; while in the next shaft there were two layers of top stone, one being very good, with occasional large balls of ½ to ¾ cwt, each. In another adjacent shaft there was in the place of the top stone "merely a white chalky stone, without any iron in it, or a trace of it." There is also another regular measure of ironstone a few feet below this, but it has never been found sufficiently good to work; and with the occasional exceptions mentioned above, and the ironstone immediately above the Bottom or Deep coal, all the ironstones found about Wyrley are very poor in quality.

Mr. Gilpin has lately communicated to me the following section of a pit in the Wyrley field which may be taken as a correct average account of the measures.