Page:The South Staffordshire Coalfield - Joseph Beete Jukes - 1859.djvu/53

Rh acquainted with the Thick coal to see whether any of the beds of Essington or Wyrley could be identified with any of those of the Thick coal by their lithological characters.

As good typical sections of the "Thick coal" I will, first of all, give two, taken from the central part of the district, one of the Claycroft colliery, at the Foxyards, about two miles north of Dudley, communicated by Mr. R. Smith from Lord Ward's office; another, the old sinking in 1797, at Tividale, one mile east of Dudley, taken from Shaw's History of Staffordshire, in which a very good account of the coal-field was given by Mr. Keir.

A few years ago the unusually thick coal at Foxyards was worked by "open work," as it there "cropped out" to the surface, and was got out from a large quarry, exposing a cliff of coal 40 feet high and about 100 yards in length.

In Shaw's History of Staffordshire Mr. Keir gives the following account of the qualities of the different beds of the Thick coal near Tividale:-—

"There is a considerable difference in the quality of the different beds or measures of the main coal. The first or upper bed called the Roof floor is generally left as a roof to support the earth or clunch above