Page:The South Staffordshire Coalfield - Joseph Beete Jukes - 1859.djvu/187

Rh at Essington and Wyrley below the coals worked there, as also in the deeper pits of the Brown Hills district, above all the coals that are usually gotten in that neighbourhood.

The Heathen coal crop is known, after traversing the New Invention fault, in the south-western part of Bloxwich, beyond which it has not been traced, though the coal itself is also said to occur in the deep pits of the Brown Hills district at the proper distance below the Bentley Hey coal.

The outcrops of these coals ought eventually to be discovered along the line of country running by Little Bloxwich, Fishley, and Little Wyrley, or Wyrley Common.

Let us return now to the Bentley and Birch Hills district. It appears that the northern fault of the Bentley Trough likewise splits up towards the east, the branches running off to the east-north-cast, and dislocating the lower Coal-measures and their outcrops in the way represented in the map. Mr. Beckett, of Wolverhampton, is my authority for the three faults running about north-east and south-west from Birch Hills Hall to Harden, and through Goscott Lodge and Coal Pool, which are delineated on the map. The latter appears to be the same as the northern branch of the northern Bentley Trough fault.

It will be recollected that the New mine coal is here already separated into two, known as the Yard and the Bass coal, that the Fire-clay coal changes its name, and further north is called the Cinder coal, but that the Bottom coal continues to carry a thickness of 12 feet, (w hence about Goscott it is sometimes called the 'Thick coal,) up to the southern corner of Pelsall Heath.

This Bottom coal was admirably exposed in October 1858, in a long open work east of Goscott Lodge, belonging to Mr. Brewer. The coal here ran north till it was cut off by 2 fault having a downthrow of some ten yards to the north, which is believed to be the extension of one of the faults already quoted as communicated by Mr. Beckett.

From all the accounts I could collect it appears certain that the faults are even still more numerous in this district than they are represented to be in the map, their complications being in some places so great as not to be unravelled without maps on a much larger scale, and, hardly perhaps even then. The lie and position, then, of the faults and of the broken outcrops of coal about Harden and Guscott, and thence up to Pelsall, which are given in the map, are to be taken as to a certain extent hypothetical. 'They represent the simplest and most consistent and logical explanation that could be arrived at, of a number of isolated facts, which could not be represented at all without some partly hypothetical connexion.

About Pelsall Heath I am indebted to Mr. Gilpin, of Church Bridge, and his ground bailiffs, —- Russell and John Brooks, of Pelsall, for much recent information.

It was from their accounts, confirmed by that of Mr. Brewer and others, that I learnt the precise spot where the Bottom coal begins to separate into two, namely, just at the old public house known as the Red Cow, at the south end of Pelsall Heath.

I must also quote Mr. Gilpin as my authority for the fault running north-east and south-west to the northward of Pelsall Heath, with a small upthrow to the north-west, as shown by the Yard coal just coming in at the corner of Pelsall Heath on the south side of it, while none was found immediately north of it, though it existed under the hamlet marked Pelsall on the map. The Deep coal (or lower part of the Bottom coal) was said to crop in Rail's coppice, and was only three