XV.—Observations on the South-western Coal District of England.

Abstract

Introduction The district, which we purpose to describe in the following memoir, comprehends the several coal-fields which lie near the estuary of the Severn and the Bristol Channel, including parts of the adjacent counties of Gloucester, Somerset, Monmouth and Glamorgan. These coal-fields, though apparently distinct and insulated, are yet connected together by resting on a common base of old red sandstone. They all appear to have been formed by similar agency, and at the same era; to have been subject at a later period to the same revolutions; and, lastly, to have been covered partially by similar overlying deposits. The many particulars, therefore, which they supply in illustration of one another, and their contiguous geographical position, have induced us to collect into one Memoir the materials that we have obtained concerning them. Of the great coal-field of South Wales, however, the most extensive of those within our district, we have reserved a full and detailed account for a separate communication; and have here restricted ourselves to such a general description of its eastern limits only, as may serve to point out its connexion with the other coal-basins adjoining. The district to be examined is of the highest interest to the scientific geologist, as serving to establish the relations of some of the most remarkable British rocks; it is of importance to the practical miner, from its numerous strata of coal and iron-ore, so opportunely associated together, and from the limestone-beds which border on