Page:The South Staffordshire Coalfield - Joseph Beete Jukes - 1859.djvu/60

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Now, about three quarters of a mile cast-south-east of the latter place, there was a deep pit sunk some years ago by the Rev. E. Dudley, and the place was called the Black Heath colliery. 'The section of this pit was communicated to me by Mr. Benjamin Gibbons, of Shut End House, and is drawn in the 18th sheet of Vertical sections. No. 23. In this section they found the beds above the Thick coal in regular order, but thin and poor, the Brooch coal, for instance, being not more than 9 inches or | foot thick, instead of 3 or 4 feet. 'They passed through the Broad earth and Catch earth, the usual measures above the Thick coal, but below them they found—

Of this section 3 and 4 must be taken to represent the Thick coal, 6 the Gubbin measures, and 7 and 8 the Heathen coal, hereafter to be described. Mr. W. Matthews informed me that he drove out gate-roads and headings towards Cakemoor in various directions and for considerable distances from this shaft without being able to find anything of more value or importance. We have here, then, the appearance of a great change and deterioration in the Thick coal, as indeed in the productiveness of the whole series, towards the south-east, proceeding from Dudley as a centre. If again we started from the neighbourhood of Oldbury, where the Thick coal beds have their normal character, we should find, as we proceeded to the south, towards this same Blackheath, that there is likewise a gradual thinning out of the Thick coal. At Mr. Chance's, No. 2 pit, between Park House and Titford reservoir, the Thick coal is only 27 feet thick, and it was said, when worked, to have thinned rapidly out towards the great boundary fault on the east, to only 7