Page:The South Staffordshire Coalfield - Joseph Beete Jukes - 1859.djvu/189

Rh The lie and position of the beds hereabouts have already been partly described (pp. 72, 87), as it was necessary to do so in order to arrive at any conclusion as to their structure and constitution. It was shown that however broken and dislocated the beds might be by the different faults that traversed them, they nevertheless preserved all the way from Bentley and the Birch Hills, by Pelsall up to Watling Street, a steady dip to the west of about 3° on an average. North of Watling Street, however, they begin to curve round so as to dip first west-north-west and then north-west, and even north-north-west, at the same low angle of inclination.

Mr. Bills, the ground bailiff of the Cannock Chase colliery, informed me, in October 1858, that they had driven gate-roads in the coals to the north-westward of their present shafts for a distance of 500 yards without meeting with any appearance of a fault or anything that would seem to interrupt their working. The pits then in use were just south of the place, where "Little" of "Little Longfield" is engraved on the map, so that they must have now driven under Norton Bog. He informed me that the beds dipped very slightly towards the north-north-west, being sometimes absolutely horizontal over a considerable space. He confirmed the "lie and position" of the faults drawn in the map about Norton and Norton reservoir. _ I was formerly informed by a collier working at Pelsall that on following the Shallow coal from Pelsall wood towards Fishley it was found to get gradually thinner, and eventually to die out altogether. I was also informed by Jesse Potts, of Wyrley, and others in that neighbourhood, that the Wyrley Eight-foot or Bottom coal cropped a little east of the Bloxwich road about Jacob's Hall.

All the measures of the Wyrley district have a gentle westerly dip, so that the highest beds are only to be found in the most westerly shafts, while they crop out successively towards the east. The most westerly shaft is that of the Waterloo colliery, near Longhouse, where they got, at a depth of 150 feet and a height of 76 feet above the Old Robins coal, a group of beds having 7 feet 4 inches of coal separated by partings of two or three feet, with another little coal 10 feet above them. The beds soon crop out to the east, and are not known in any other of the Wyrley pits. At Essington colliery, however, they get a similar group of beds at a height of 61½ feet above the Old Robins coal, having a total thickness of 7 feet 4 inches of coal with one little parting of 2 inches, and another small coal above them. These two groups of beds are evidently the same, and they are probably the coal which has been found in the wells and in the foundations of the houses at Wyrley bank, just striking the high ground there.

Mr. Gilpin has lately informed me that the whole of the Wyrley district is chopped up by faults of greater or less magnitude, and so numerous that he found it quite impossible to trace them on the one-inch map. The three north-north-east faults, formerly marked on the map, are correct so far as they go, one running through Great Wyrley with a downthrow to the west, and two others running a little east of Wyrley bank with downthrows to the east of twelve and sixteen yards respectively. Of these two the most eastern splits up, towards the south, into several branches, and terminates. The other one, however, continues with an increasing throw towards the south, and turns off towards the east-south-east with a downthrow northwards of thirty-two yards. It may possibly run off in that direction till it is connected with the northern downthrows on the south side of the High Bridge Trough. A little south of Wyrley bank this fault is crossed by another running nearly east and west, with a downthrow to the south of twenty