Page:The South Staffordshire Coalfield - Joseph Beete Jukes - 1859.djvu/116

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Relation of the Coals, 5c, of Wyrley and Essington to the Red coal-measure elays.—We might look upon the red measures in the upper part of the Longhouse section as being the bottom of the Red clays of the coal-measures, if it were not for the fact that they come in at a height of only 168 feet above the Old Robins coal, while in the Essington colliery there is a thickness of 252 feet of true coal-measures over that coal, with beds of coal and clunch and fire-clay throughout, and without the appearance of any red clays except those which are undoubtedly superficial or drift materials. It is probable then that the red beds at Longhouse belonged to the New red sandstone, and that the shaft was sunk through the boundary fault which inclined obliquely across it.

We have, therefore, here no means of determining exactly the height above the Old Robins or other of the Wyrlcy and Essington coals at which the Red coal-measure beds ought to make their appearance in the section. But as the beds in the Essington colliery dip at a gentle angle in the direction of the south-west extension of the Red clays in the Essington Wood brick pits, it is probable that the uppermost beds of Essington colliery would be covered by the Red clays about half way between the two places, and without any very large increase of thickness, not more, perhaps, than 100 feet or thereabouts.

If this be true, the Essington and Wyrley coals may be expected to lie at no very unreasonable depth beneath the Red clays of the Essington Wood brick pits, and over all the space up to the boundary fault as drawn in the latest edition of our maps (that of 1859).

The Red coal-measure clays, however, are worked on the eastern side of the district about Walsall Wood as well as on the west side near Essington, and have beneath them coals which are now being worked. Let us therefore examine,

The relations between the Red coal-measure clays of Walsall Wood and the Coal-measures of Coppy Hall Colliery and the Aldridge Trial Pit—The Red clays about Walsall Wood and the neighbourhood have long been extensively opened by brick pits. Their general dip is northerly at very slight angles, not more than 3°. A shaft has now been lately sunk through a considerable thickness of these clays south of all the brick pits, and where, therefore, they are probably thinner than