Joseph Beete Jukes

“ In tracing the Thick limestone to the north it is seen to bend round and to be cut off by a small fault, a downthrow to the north, near "the Butts." Partly by reason of this downthrow, partly from the rise of the ground, the lower Coal-measures with the Blue flats ironstone here overlap the limestone, and run some distance to the east of its outcrop, till the gradual fall of the ground allows the Silurian shale to come to the surface again. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Along their south-east margin, old coal-pits are abundant, and wherever a little valley cuts into them, the old coal-pits run down it for a short distance. Old coal-pits, with abundance of coal shale on their banks, are found on both sides of the Hednesford Hills, and everything goes to make it probable that at this northern side of the coal-field the boundary is formed by an unconformable overlap of the New red sandstone resting horizontally, or nearly so, on the slightly inclined edges of the Coal-measures. ”

“ Near Littleworth there are some clay pits, in which blue bricks are made from some beds that appear to be the upper red clays of the Coal-measures, like those at Rumour Hill, at Essington Wood, and at Walsall Wood If this be so, and our identification of these measures be correct, it will follow that all the Essington and Wyrley Coal-measures will there be found below, and probably, therefore, all their coals and ironstones. ”

“ The outcrop of a coal may be seen in the valley of the brook south of Castle Hill, while another outcrop may be seen in a little gulley on the north side of it in Beaudesert Old Park. Old coal-pits are scattered all over this old park, all of which were said to go down to the same coal, and none to have been more than about 30 yards deep. ”

“ In the cutting of the road the Silurian shale may be seen dipping east at 40° for about 30 yards above the limestone; there are then 9 yards of Coal-measure sandstone, with ironstone balls, dipping in the same way, and 100 yards east of that the bottom beds of the Thick coal may be seen dipping west at 65°, or towards the limestone. The Thick coal must, therefore, be reversed, or bottom upwards. ”

“ If the coal had not cropped out along that line, it is at all events very probable that the western boundary fault would have run along it with one great heave of a downthrow to the west bringing in the Permian or New red sandstone beds against the Coal-measures. ”

“ The Permian beds near Barr seem to be brought in solely by a fault, though perhaps even that is doubtful, while at the Lickey there is no occasion for any such supposition, since they seem simply to have covered up all the other rocks unconformably, and to be now partly removed from off a certain space by simple denudation. ”

“ I believe, therefore, that here, as elsewhere, wherever I have had an opportunity of making accurate observations, the mere intrusion or outburst of igneous rock has had little or no immediate connexion with the dislocations or elevations of the rock. ”

“ The eastern outcrop of the Old Man's coal in the Bentley Trough is just north of the Bentley furnaces, the Bentley Hey coal cropping west of the canal near Birch Hills, and the Heathen and lower coals cropping out successively to the east as we follow the trough towards Ryecroft. ”

“ B. The new shaft sunk in search of the coal.
1. Coal-measures.
2. The Thick coal.
3. Silurian shale.
4. The Limestones of the Wren's Nest hill.
These men have a fixed idea that coal grows, that it is still growing and forming in the earth, and that not only the coals and ironstones grow, but that the faults grow likewise; it is not possible, therefore, that they can have any clear ideas of their work, or be able to adapt it to any unusual circumstances. ”

“ In the Hays coal-pits, just east of this, the Thick coal is found greatly broken and disturbed, dipping generally east, at a high angle, and then suddenly assuming a nearly horizontal position, in which it continues some hundred yards to the eastward. ”

“ Mills's new colliery to the westward of the Old Mitre (just where the "'T'" of "The" is engraved in the map) the Cannel coal is 396 feet (132 yards) deep, proving, with the gentle dip of the measures, that there must be a fault with a large downthrow to the west, between these two places. The amount of this downthrow is stated at 65 yards (195 feet) . The dip of the beds on the downside of this fault is about west-north-west, in which direction they will pass obliquely under the red clays, &e, of Essington Wood. ”

“ They show that the action of the disturbing forces did not end merely in producing the Silurian elevations lately described, but was continued into the Coal-measures to the northward, and may have extended still farther for an unknown distance, producing fractures and dislocations in rocks now buried under the Permian and New red standstone rocks on the north-west. ”

“ The Dudley Port Trough faults.—These are two parallel faults starting from near the Free bodies at the north-west corner of the Rowley Hills, and running about north-north-east for about 2 miles up to the Horsley collieries. They are scarcely a quarter of a mile asunder, and each throws down the piece of ground between them to the maximum depth of 130 yards ”

“ Such as they are, however, these beds appear to have been very little disturbed by fractures and dislocations, the debased representative of the Thick coal passing under the Rowley basalt on the one side and striking against the Boundary fault on the other at a depth of 400 or 500 feet, often thinning from 30 feet to 3 feet in all directions, and being frequently not worth the trouble of getting. ”

“ The quartz rock of the Lickey is greatly broken and fractured, and in some cases violently contorted. At the northern end, about Holly and Rubury Hills, and by the New Road, it dips easterly at from 10° to 20°. ”