June 2, 1916.

THE COLLIERY GUARDIAN.

1039

Mr. Lant, who seconded, said he did not think the
council had done anything wrong, but he thought the
whole country should be represented on a national
council.

Mr. Diamond supported. He considered they should
put their society on the basis of the Society of Chemical
Industry. If they could go back and say that meeting
had decided to have branches and form a council, they
would be able to get quite ^another 20 members. There
were quite 20 members in Durham holding back to see
whether they were going to have a full branch.

Mr. Philipson supported. One of the main objects
of the society, he said, was to get together an influential
body, with a view to improving the status of the coke
oven managers. If they did not get a national body,
they could not get an influential body. It was no use
the Yorkshire members thinking they were going to con-
trol the Coke Oven Managers’ Association for the whole
country. In Durham they had more patent ovens than
there were in South Yorkshire. They had very influen-
tial men who would not consider this proposition at all
unless they had a say in the working of the society.

Mr. Myers said the whole of the members in Stafford-
shire were entirely in favour of forming a local associa-
tion with representatives on the council. It was the
only way to keep the association alive and fulfil the
objects for which it was formed—first of all, to improve
the industry, to improve the status of the coke oven
managers, and, by meeting together in branches, to
foster exchanges of ideas which would lead incidentally
to the improvement of the industry from the technical
point of view.

Mr. Haigh opposed. The council for this year, he
said, was mainly composed of South Yorkshiremen,
because the association was formed there; but gentle-
men from Durham or Staffordshire or South Wales had
the power to nominate representatives. While he was
perfectly in accord with each branch having its quota
of representatives, they had already provided for that in
the branch rules, which they passed at the last meet-
ing. Every chairman would, by virtue of his office,
be a member of the council, and every member of the
council who wanted to serve would no doubt be elected
by the general body of members to do so. He did not
think it wise to begin to alter their constitution. He
was also a member of the Society of Chemical Industry,
but there was a very great difference between the two
societies. The Society of Chemical Industry had a
membership of between 6,000 and 7,000, and out of that
tremendous body of membership only got an attendance
of 100 to 200. They, with their membership of 122,
would not be likely to get any great body of their mem-
bers meeting once a year. With regard to South York-
shire being a branch, there was nothing to prevent their
having a branch in South Yorkshire. They had in their
constitution at present everything necessary to work the
organisation on the lines suggested by the north-
country members. They had three branches in exist-
ence, and everybody who wanted to form a branch might
do so. He was sure there was no wish on the part of
the South Yorkshire members to rule the association at
all. Did the society look like dying a natural death,
when they had 120 members out of a possible 150 or
160? He was afraid they would more likely kill it
with kindness.

Mr. Lee said he was certain this constant alteration
of rules would not, when reported in the Press, add to
the dignity of their association. They were all anxious
their little baby association should run before it had
quite learned the necessary movements for walking.
There was a great deal of impatience in the minds of all
of them. He suggested that another course should be
taken, and moved : “ That it shall be an instruction to
the council, with representative members from every
district, to prepare a scheme for the formation of a
national council, and examine the constitution, and sug-
gest alterations with this end in view.” He did that
because he was conscious that the date would come
when a national council—a national association, if they
liked—would have to be formed. He was also con-
scious that the time would come, and perhaps had come
now, when in every district there should be a branch,
but he hoped they would get away from these constant
notices of motion, and in a dignified, careful fashion
draw a constitution, which should be able to stand,
anyhow, for 12 months, if it could not stand any longer.
He further suggested that the scheme should be pre-
pared at such a time that it would be possible to adopt
it at their annual meeting, and straight away form the
national council.

Mr. Haigh seconded.

Mr. Price said that he could not see the difference
between Mr. Lee’s motion and his own. He hoped that
Mr. Lee did not think that the present council were
going to draw up the scheme, place it on the board, and
say, “We must carry this straight away.” His was
only the outline of a scheme, and certainly they would
have to meet and draw up a scheme.

Mr. Lee said it differed in this, that it carried out in
actual wording what Mr. Price had in his mind. Mr.
Price’s did not go far enough.

The Chairman said it seemed to him there was no
difference between them in the matter. They were all
agreed there should be a national council, a representa-
tive body; and unless the constitution was altered in
the way suggested by Mr. Price and Mr. Lee, the
branch with the greatest number of members would be
the ruling body. If the meeting agreed to Mr. Lee’s
amendment, the council could go on drawing up the
scheme, and submit it at the annual meeting for their
consent.

Mr. Haigh : Will each branch be asked to send a
representative to assist in drawing up the constitution?

The Chairman : Certainly.

Mr. Price accepted the amendment, which was
carried unanimously.

Some Effects of Earth Movement on the Coal Measures
of the Sheffield District, etc.—Part II.*

By Prof. W. G. FEARNS1DES, M.A.

POST-CARBONIFEROUS AND PRE-PERMIAN
MOVEMENTS.

Having in the first part of this paper) passed in
review the effects wrought upon the coal measures
while yet they were flat-lying as sheets of sediment
continuous over an area at least as great as the 12
northernmost counties of England, the writer will now
consider the movements which brought about the par-
tition of the area, and gave to the North Midland dis-
trict its individuality as a separate coal field. In the
formation of this particular coal field, earth movements
of several ages subsequent to the carboniferous have
played a part, and it will be the writer’s task in the
present portion of the paper to elucidate the effects
which belong to the post-carboniferous and pre-permian
period, and to disentangle them from those of later date,
by comparing the geometry of the folded surface of one
of the more important horizons in the coal measures
with that of the surface of unconformity which divides
the permian from the carboniferous rocks in South
Yorkshire, Derbyshire, and Nottinghamshire.

Opinions of Authorities.

Green, recognising that in nearly all our coal fields
the dip of the measures is generally towards the middle
of the field, gave the following explanation : At the close
of the coal measure period the North of England was
subjected to lateral pressure from the south, and parts
of the country rose in ridges (“ Pendle anticlines ”).
These ranged “ east and west, or east-north-east and
west-south-west.” One of them, “'from Clitheroe,
north of Pendle Hill, past Skipton, towards Harrogate,”
forms the northern boundary of the Yorkshire field.
Another, “ very largely hidden beneath the new red
sandstone, runs in an east-and-west direction to the

— Key Map to —
Coalfield Distribution in Northern England.

-- Scali --

Y/7X ROCKS OLDER THAN CARBONIFEROUS.

ROCKS NEWER THAN COAL MEASURES.

COAL MEASURES.

CARBONIFEROUS ROCKS OLDER THAN COAL MEASURES

Fig. 1.

south of Nottingham, and terminates the [North Mid-
land] coal field on the south.” Subsequent to such
uplift, the country was planated (or levelled) by
denudation. “ As each arch was squeezed up, denuda-
tion took slice after slice off its crest, and by this means
along the central line of each saddle the lower beds
were stripped of the covering beneath which they were
originally buried, and now show themselves at the sur-
face. Those portions of the higher beds which were
sunk into troughs escaped in large measure, and
survive.” After this cycle of denudation, the area is
supposed to have sunk down beneath the waters of the
magnesian limestone sea, and have received successive
sheets of permian sediments. At the close of the per-
mian period it again emerged, and the Pennine system
of folding is supposed to have been impressed upon it.
Concerning these Pennine folds, we are told that “ the
Pennine anticlines range approximately north and
south; along [which] line the rocks are really folded
over many times in succession, but the general result
has been to produce a broad flat arch running from
Derbyshire northwards into Scotland.”

Gibson joined issue very directly upon this question.
Dealing with the structural, features of the area which
has become known as “'the concealed coal field of York-

* From a paper read before the Midland Institute of
Mining. Civil, and Mechanical Engineers.

f Colliery Guardian, September 17, 1915, p. 557.

shire and Nottinghamshire,” he states that " the main
structures originated and were stereotyped during the
long interval which elapsed between the close of the
carboniferous and the opening of the magnesian lime-
stone period.” Gibson, like Green, seems to think that
two movements, each of the nature of a lateral thrust,
have taken part in the formation of the coal basins. Of
the direction of these movements, he says : “ By far the
most powerful thrust came from the east. It was
accompanied, or, according to some authorities, it was
preceded, by a secondary impulse from the south and
south-east. . . . While the relative age of the move-
ments is disputed, it is quite certain that the two sets
operated and were completed before the magnesian
limestone period. When at the commencement of the
limestone epoch depression and sedimentation again
took place, the complicated structure and its outline
had been almost completed.”

It is thus evident that in the course of the last 35
years there has been a considerable change in the
opinions held by geologists as to the age of the anti-
clines, which together form the “ backbone of
England.” Not all the evidence comes from coal field
geology, and it by no means follows that the last word
has yet been spoken upon this most fascinating of
problems in the geology of the North of England.
Green, perhaps, drew his inferences from observations
made in the north; Gibson, his from data obtained in
the south Pennine country; and it may be that this
difference in the locus, as well as in the date of their
geological education, may be largely responsible for the
differences in their points of view.

Preparation of a Map..

Stimulated by Dr. Gibson’s memoir, and wishing to
team at first hand what really are the structures of the
coal field in which he was about to take up work, the
present writer, when first he came to Sheffield, had
intended to set about the making of a model of the dis-
trict. A course of field work, with visits to collieries
and inspection of colliery maps and plans, and a perusal
of those chapters of Green’s writings in which the dis-
tricts he visited were described, soon persuaded him that
the main structures of the South Yorkshire district are
so broad and open, that only a large-scale model could
be of use, and that for general educational purposes
almost all of them could be quite as w’ell represented by
means of maps.

The contour method, long familiar to water engineers,
seems first to have been applied to the interpretation of
borehole information by Dr. A. Strahan. Its successful
use by Dr. Gibson for the interpretation and reconstruc-
tion of the form of the surface of unconformity at the
base of the permian, had shown its possibilities in coal
field work, and the time was therefore ripe for the
extended application of the method to the study of the
coal seams themselves. A start was made with the
contours of the Top Hard seam of coal, which, when
plotted from information contained in the “ Geology of
the North Derbyshire Coal Field ” and in the “ Con-
cealed Coal Field ” memoir, on the same map with those
of the base of the permian, showed how frequently the
direction of the strike of the permian rocks makes a con-
siderable angle with the strike or level line in the coal
measures which they overlie, and demonstrated very
clearly the truth of Gibson’s contention that “the
permian rocks, gently inclined, pass over the edges of
the coal measure anticlines and synclines without them-
selves being folded.”

Just at that time, most opportunely, came the publi-
cation of the book of tabulated “ Sections of Strata of
the Coal Measures of Yorkshire,” compiled by the
Sections Committee of the Midland Institute of Mining,
Civil, and Mechanical Engineers, and this, with its
accompanying map showing the approximate localities
to which each section belongs, provided a wealth of
handy information ready to be applied to the same pur-
pose. This accordingly was attempted, and a year ago
a sketch map was produced showing approximate under-
ground contour lines both for the base of the permian
formation and for the Barnsley seam of coal, on the
topographical basis of the Midland Institute’s map.
Surface outcrops of the beds contoured were transferred
from official Geological Survey maps. The map thus
prepared was shown to Mr. G. Blake Walker, and
through him offered for publication to the president and
council of the institute, by whom it was referred to the
Finance Committee of the Institution of Mining Engi-
neers. By each of these authorities the practical utility
to mining men of such a ma[ was recognised, and when
certain imperfections and omissions in the plotting of
the pit sites were pointed out to them, authority was
given for a new’ map to be prepared with the information
noted with as much precision as the scale of the map
allowed. The location of its area (25 in. by 25 in.,
representing some 2,500 square miles of country), in its
relation to the other coal fields of the North of England,
is shown by the inset square on the geological key map
(fig. 1). The area has been so chosen that, while no
important working collieries have been excluded on the
north and west (Bradford, Halifax, and Leeds district),
more of the Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire part of the
coal field is included than on the former map, and
Sheffield is shown more nearly in the middle of the dis-
trict from which its fuel supplies are drawn. The list
of pit sites shown was drawn up from the Home Office
List of Mines (No. 3, York and North Midland Division)
for 1913 (the latest complete year in which coal mining
conditions can be accounted normal in this country),