Page:The South Staffordshire Coalfield - Joseph Beete Jukes - 1859.djvu/129

Rh which is given in the "Silurian System," and shall, therefore content myself with the following quotations from it:—

"On first examining the tract in 1834. I observed, that at two points on its eastern and south-eastern flank (Colmers and Kendal End) the quartz rock was overlaid by a limestone and shale which contained some corals and shells of the Wenlock formation. At Kendal End, the solid limestone extracted, 23 years before, did not exceed a yard in thickness, but it was accompanied by small concretions called 'batch cakes.' The existence of another thin band of limestone was ascertained by sinking for coal at the Colmers." * * * "The sheds of coal and shale" * * * "were easily penetrated; and the sinkings were continued through a thin layer of impure limestone, only 13 inches thick, which, from its appearance and organic remains. I consider to be one of those calcareous courses which underlie the Wenlock shale, and form the top of the Caradoc ('Llandovery') sandstone (Woolhope limestone)." * * * "After penetrating this limestone, the coal speculators sunk till they were stopped by a hard quartzose sandstone and reddish slaty clay, similar to that which rises on the eastern flank of the quartz hills. Near the southern extremity of Snead's Heath, the cutting of a new road exposed a reddish siliceous sandstone, made up of rounded grains of quartz, containing casts of characteristic Caradoc ('Llandovery') fossils. These fossiliferous sandstones, having in themselves a half-fused appearance, form the upper portion of the true quartz rock of these hills, into which they graduate insensibly at Snead's Heath, so that it is impracticable to draw any defined line between the reddish fossiliferous sandstone and the quartz rock."

The little fragments of limestone or calcareous flags lying on the old spoil banks in the Long Wood near the Colmers, when I examined the ground, were precisely similar to those which I, afterwards saw in the ploughed field at Shustoke Lodge. I have, therefore, now no doubt that those calcareous courses at the Colmers, as well as the band of limestone formerly worked at Kendal End at the south end of the Lower Lickey range are also the representatives of the Barr limestone, and that the shales in which they lie repose directly on the Llandovery sandstone. Sir R. I. Murchison, indeed, expressly says above, that after penetrating the limestone bands at the Colmers, the speculators were stopped by hard quartzose sandstone and slatey clay similar to that which rises near the eastern flank of the Quartz Hills (see Fig. 21).

The beds of quartz rock in the Lower Lickey range are tilted at high angles, and in some places much contorted, and the whole must have a thickness of 300 or 400 feet at least.

What influence it was that converted the rather soft sandstone that is to be seen at Barr into hard quartz rock at the Lickey we cannot exactly say, but as the quartz rock has apparently no other cement than a siliceous one, it seems impossible that dry heat could have effected it. If, moreover, there had been heat of a sufficient intensity to cause this alteration, it seems scarcely possible to conceive that the Wenlock shales and limestones should not have been equally effected.

We may, perhaps, be permitted to speculate on the possibility of hot springs having at some period burst out along the line of the Lower Lickey, the water having either itself contained silica in