between its branches a wide tract of Permian rocks, occupying the eastern half of Himley Park, all Baggeridge Woods, and great part of Penn Common.
Indications of the extension of the west branch of this fault into the New red sandstone were observed as far as the Lloyd farm, by Mr. Beckett of Wolverhampton.
The main part or true boundary fault runs as drawn in the map, with a curved line up to Sedgley Hall farm; quarries or cuttings in the Permian rocks being observed at intervals all the way on one side, and Coal-measures on the other. At the turnpike-gate west of Sedgley some small pits in a patch of Thick coal were worked formerly, and in the year 1828 a trial pit was sunk just east of Sedgley Hall farm. In this trial pit the Thick coal was found at a depth of 323 feet, dipping to the west at an angle represented as only 12°. But as a quarry in the Permian rocks may be seen just north of the farm, and the limestone ridge rises immediately on the east of it, it is clear that there must be a fault on each side of this patch of Coal-measures. Moreover the first 120 feet in this shaft was described as "red croprash rock and marl," which were in all probability Permian rocks. From these facts it is probable that the boundary fault "hades" here, at a comparatively low angle, to the west, leaving a long space of " barren ground" between the ends of the Thick coal on opposite sides of the fault (see Horizontal Sections. Sheet 24. No. 6). This is probably the general character of the boundary fault in the southern part of its course. Along the flank of the Sedgley ridge all we know of the boundary fault is that there are Silurian rocks on the high ground on one side, and Permians in the valley below.
In the Parkfield coalworks beyond, as also in the Cockshutts and Green Lanes collieries, the Coal-measures are very violently broken and contorted,[1] and a very common feature is a rapid dip of the coal measures towards the fault as they approach it.
Patches of Thick coal were found in the shafts south of the Fighting Cocks dipping at the fault. Lord Ward's agent. Mr. R. Smith, informed me, that at one spot, after the Blue flats ironstone had risen to the surface in the form of an S from a depth of 100 yards, so that one shaft passed through the same measure three times, they sank a shaft a little farther west, in which, after passing through a few yards of "Red rock," they came down to some Thick coal, dipping west at a gentle angle, which they followed for a few yards till they found it cut off by another fault, hading rapidly to the west.
At a pit sunk in the Green Lanes, Wolverhampton, they found the Brooch coal at a depth of 30 or 40 yards (90 to 120 feet), dipping west at 2 in 3 (=34°), but as they sank deeper they found the dip of the beds increasing to 2 in 1[2] (=63°). This was very close to the line of the fault. At the tunnel of the railway at Wednesfield Heath the New mine coal cropped very gently up towards the fault for several hundred yards, and was exposed in the cutting of the railway.[3] Just at the east mouth of the tunnel they met with the "Red rock," dipping westerly, and the coal as it approached it was likewise seen suddenly to dip
- ↑ Not far from the Fighting Cocks a pit was sunk formerly where Mr. Pugh's house stands, in which pit the New mine coal, 6 feet thick, took 30 yards (90 feet) of perpendicular depth to traverse the width of the shaft, 7 feet. It dipped, therefore, at an angle of 81°.
- ↑ That is, in a seven-foot shaft, after passing through one measure on the crop side of the pit, they sank 14 feet deep before they left it on the dip side of the shaft.
- ↑ This is stated from my own personal recollection of the cutting at the time of the formation of the Grand Junction Railway.
