or 20 feet. The beds between consist sometimes entirely of fire-clay, binds, clunch, or clod, or other argillaceous materials; sometimes these are variously split up by, and interstratified with rock or rock binds, and occasionally these sandy materials almost entirely replace the others. A little coal a few inches thick sometimes occurs in these beds, and the interposed beds of clunch sometimes contain scattered balls or nodules of ironstone.
34. (I. 13.) The Gubbin[1] and Balls ironstone.—This set of beds, as a distinct and recognizable measure, containing ironstone worth getting, and regularly "gotten," is chiefly confined to the district around Wolverhampton, Bilston, and Walsall. The following section at Chillington colliery near Wolverhampton gives its best developed form:—
| FT. | IN. | FT. | IN. | |
| Balls of ironstone | 0 | 8 | ||
| Clod | 2 | 6 | ||
| Balls of ironstone | 0 | 6 | ||
| Dark clod | 1 | 6 | ||
| Gubbin ironstone | 0 | 6 | ||
| Clod | 1 | 0 | ||
| Gubbin ironstone | 0 | 3 | ||
| 5 | 0 | 1 | 11 | |
(See Vertical Sections, sheet 16, No. 9.)
Measures similar in character, varying from 5 feet to 10 feet, and containing more or less ironstone, sometimes the Balls, sometimes the Gubbin being absent, and sometimes both found wanting, extend all over the district just mentioned. South of Bilston around Bradley they diminish to about 3 feet. At Tipton Moat colliery there is mentioned "binds with ironstone, 8 feet," about the place of the Gubbin and Balls, namely, at 10 feet below the Bottom coal, but at Coneygroe, Foxyards, Gornal, Shaver's End, and the neighbourhood of Dudley generally, there seems no trace of this measure.
The sole vague and uncertain trace of them in the south-western district is the mention in the Graveyard section of "ironstone balls 6 inches," at a depth of 5 ft. 6 in. below what is believed to be the Bottom coal.
Going north towards Bentley, we get, at the Island, the following section: —
| FT. | IN. | FT. | IN. | |
| Balls of ironstone | 0 | 3 | ||
| Clunch | 2 | 0 | ||
| Ironstone | 0 | 4 | ||
| Clunch | 1 | 0 | ||
| 3 | 0 | 1 | 0 | |
As the representative of this measure in the central part of the Bentley district, and thence by Birch Hills and Bloxwich, there is only mentioned in the pit sections "gubbin 6 inches."
- ↑ I believe this term "Gubbin," which is commonly used in all the Midland coal-fields, is derived from an old English word "gub" or "gob," meaning a piece, lump, or fragment. The waste left after extraction of a coal is called "the gob."
