AT a meeting of the Geological Society of London, on the 24th April last. (Leonard Horner, Esq President, in the chair,) a paper was read “On the ‘Symon Fault,’ in the Coalbrookdale Coalfield,” by Marcus W. T Scott, Esq., F.G.S. This communication was based on observations made during many years on a section through a part of the Shropshire coalfield in nearly a straight line from north to south, commencing at the Greyhound Pit, near Oaken-Gates Tunnel of the Shrewsbury and Birmingham Railway, and terminating at John Anstice and Co.’s Halesfield Pits near Madeley. Particular reference was made to the explanation of the nature of the Great East or Symon Fault. The author commenced making his observations on the Malins-Lee and Stirchley Royalties in 1843; and in 1845 he came to the conclusion that what the miners termed in this locality the “Symon Fault,”—that is, the successive dying out of certain coal seams, ironstones, &c., at various depths underground, was due to an old denudation which had produced an inclined surface at the expense of some of the beds before the upper measures were deposited. Having obtained, in course of time, correct sections of several pits situated in the N-S line above-mentioned, the author, taking the “Little Flint” (the lowest workable coal) as a base-line, plotted the several shifted segments of the coalfield in a vertical plan, and thus restored the original outline of the denuded area (one side of a valley) as seen in a transverse section. Six sinkings in the N-S line having indicated the successive disappearance of five workable coal beds in a distance of 2,508 yards, a seventh pit, 1,518 yards further south, was found to yield all the coals again, and the author thinks that between the 6th (the Grange) and the 7th (Halesfield) pits the coals re-occur successively on the opposite side of the old valley of denudation, and that they may here be sought for and worked advantageously. The line of the old valley of denudation apparently strikes the Great East fault, as laid down on the Geological Survey Map, at a considerable angle.

DESCENT OF SHAWFIELD SHAFT IN SEARCH OF THE GREAT EAST FAULT

Has the reader ever been down a coalpit? It is more than probable that he has not, and that his acquaintance with the mineral it yields extends not beyond the knowledge that it spins and weaves and keeps in motion the machinery of the nation - that it affords him personal comfort, and among the valuable products derivable therefrom are the rich dyes to which his wife and daughters are indebted for their gayest reds and other colours. We can only assure him, if such is the case, that he has a treat in store, and that, in addition to the novelty, there is even some poetry in a mine. Everyone who has read Hugh Miller, must know the wealth an open quarry yields, and what a pleasing thing it is to be on familiar terms with easy wayside rock, or boulder-stone - to be able to converse with them in the light of day till they become familiar friends, and give you up their history. It is not less so to go down a hundred fathoms deep, and by the “dim religious light” the mine affords, to read the hieroglyphics that adorn its roof. Moreover, there are certain scars on Nature’s face that have healed over upon the surface, and which, in the language of the mine are faults: a term sufficiently explicit to be necessary of explanation - except that there is a class of these, not so much the result of dislocation or displacement, as of a gradual diminution or total disappearance of the mineral. The former are generally called clear-cut faults, the latter are known as Surion; but why Surion we cannot tell, excepting that they are more deceitful - oftener betray the miner, by leading him on with delusive hope, and dashing the cup suddenly from his lips.

The Great East Fault of the Shropshire Coalfield is one which partakes of both of these characters, so far as appearances go; for while undulations on the surface lead to the conclusion that it is a fracture, or old earthquake crack, causing a considerable difference of level, appearances below are such as lead Mr. Scott and some others to the conclusion that it marks the boundary of the field, and that all beyond is a sort of Ultima Thule – an unknown and undiscovered region.

We had long a desire to see for ourselves, and as one of the proprietors of the mines referred to in the above paper was kind enough to afford us an opportunity, we gladly accepted the invitation of the ground-bailiff one day last week to accompany him. It was a bright April morning, which made the deep dark shaft more doleful by its brightness and gave the place a threatening aspect, the huge beam wagging its head up and down at the open gable of the engine-house seeming to say, “One nod of mine can convert any living man into a bundle of broken bones.” The gongs, too, at the pit-head sounded so melancholy that, happening to be first upon the ground, we certainly felt inclined to make the non-appearance of our friend an excuse for running away; but to turn coward would be to bring down the laugh of the whole colony of the pit, now busy shovelling the mineral wealth drawn from the deep cellars we were anxious to explore, and we stood watching the iron monster dipping its long proboscis into the pit and lifting heap after heap of coals, till we felt convinced it was under good control, or that, having the strength of a giant, it seemed to know how to use it. So we encased ourselves in flannel and took to the “doubles,” which latter, by the way, are simply chains in which we suspend ourselves, and although one looks like a hooked fish dangling in mid-air, it is safer than the skit, with its ponderous iron umbrella, provided for the protection of the men.

We take the deepest pit of the pair, for the other, being the upcast shaft smokes like a volcano, from the fire which ventilates the mine and forces the return air with its impurities to the surface. One feels nervous as the platform on wheels is flung from under, and 700 feet of thin air only intervenes between and the bottom of the deep tunnel. At the word “short,” shouted by the banksman, we dip suddenly from the sunlight, the contrast to the eves being not greater than that which affects the ears, for we experience a stillness so soothing to senses, as to make one feel that to loose the chain would be to tumble into a bed of down - an experiment however, it will be as well not to try. The orifice of the pit gradually contracts to a day-star, but it is scarcely wise to look up, the chances being that your eyes get filled with coaldust; the shaft grows shiny, a clanking of chains is heard, and a glowworm-looking light shows the bottom, which we touch as gently as a mother puts her infant on its feet. It takes time for the eye to accustom itself to the light, a dim perception being all you get at first of surrounding objects. Coming down at six and at ten o’clock, or later in the morning, makes all the difference - as in the former case, the men tell us, the eye suffers no inconvenience. We waited, therefore, for a time at the stables, which are exceedingly snug and warm for the horses; they are open on one side, as no cold winds or rains can reach them, and the horses look sleek and well under their treatment.

Furnished with candles, fixed in bits of moist clay - a candlestick having this advantage, that you can stick it to the side of the mine, or any other convenient place - we take the mainway into the mine, our progress being impeded, now and then, by ponderous doors that regulate the ventilation, and by having to pull up at the “partings,” to allow the horses to pass. The mainway is roomy and in some places lofty, the latter bring more particularly the case where what may be called the ceiling has fallen in, so as to expose the roof of a second story, and when this is the case a sight is obtained of several beds of coal at one time. The roof, which bulges in in places, is propped by strong timber, called trees, and stout cross pieces that bend and crack from the enormous pressure they have to bear.

We pause at times to note its curious tracery - the fluted columns of tiers and odd ramifications of the branches, with impressions of their leaves-stalks, and of the foliage left upon the plastic clay on which they rest. Respecting these, Buckland, who compares the effect to the painted ceilings of Italian palaces, says:- “The spectator feels himself transported, as if by enchantment, into the forests of another world; he beholds trees, of form and character now unknown upon the face of the earth, presented to his senses almost in the beauty of their primeval life; their scaly stems and bending branches, their primeval life; their scaly stems and bending branches, with their delicate apparatus of foliage, are all spread before him, little impaired by the lapse of countless ages, and bearing faithful records of extinct vegetation, which began and terminated in time of which these relics are infallible historians. Such are the grand natural herbarae wherein these most ancient remains of the vegetable world are preserved in a state of integrity little short of their living perfection, under conditions of our planet which exist no more.”

We lingered under pictures such as these till weary of looking up, and just as the atmosphere began to feel oppressive, bringing with it a slight degree of coaldust, we came upon the men naked to the waist; the “holers” or hewers squatting on their haunches, lying on their sides, or bending two double to get the underclay or “pricking” from beneath the coals. Such uncouth positions make colliers bandy-legged, or to look as though they had sat as long astride a beer barrel as Simon Stylites is said to have done upon a pillar, to a less useful end.

The “getters” are those who bring down the mineral when undermined, and for this purpose blasting is resorted to where naked lights burn clear and the works are free from firedamp. At such times the booming echoes along the galleries and subterranean recesses come upon one with a supernatural sound. A shot fired while we were in the mine startled us, suggesting for the moment rather unpleasant thoughts of explosion, and by the time the alarm had died away, nearly suffocating us with smoke. Two seams of coal are being worked in the mine - the Best Coal and the Randle Coal - there being only a slum, or thin division between them. Over these we had to crawl on all-fours in front of what is called the face of the work, and beyond that along a narrow passage opened in the direction of the fault; the latter being not high enough even to admit crawling on hands and knees, causing a copious perspiration, and suggesting the idea that to open the pores and escape calomel a pilgrimage in a mine is the thing. It is a position, however, to suggest other thoughts. There we are, nearly a thousand feet below the green fields or the hard road, on the old platform on which Nature wrought when the globe was younger, for as the rings of the tree tell its growth the number and thickness of these coverings indicate the stages of the earth’s development. Upon appearances for or against the theory advanced by the author of the above paper, it is not our intention at present to dwell; but in addition to a succession of slips or slides which favour a conclusion the very opposite to that at which he arrived, which we observed in the fault itself, we may mention, that we observed a short distance from it there is a seam of coal which instead of occupying its natural and horizontal position, has been pitched edgewise along the roof of the mine, which could only have been done by force, and at same time subsequent to the period of its consolidation. And one thought here suggests itself; seeing these are earthquake rents, each of which if occurring now would shake all the coalshafts of the country into ruins, how wisely have those great changes been brought about which force themselves on our attention, underground and upon the surface, and have brought these rich mineral beds within our reach. J.R.

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