A collection of geological facts and practical observations, intended to elucidate the formation of the Ashby Coal-field. In the parish of Ashby-de-la-Zouch and the neighbouring district; being the result of forty years' esperience and research / By Edward Mammatt. Illustrated by a map and profiles, coloured sections of the stratification and one hundred and two plates of vegetable fossils, after drewings taken from nature, by Robert Ironmonger.

  • Mammatt, Edward, 1807-1860.
Date:
1834
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A collection of geological facts and practical observations, intended to elucidate the formation of the Ashby Coal-field. In the parish of Ashby-de-la-Zouch and the neighbouring district; being the result of forty years' esperience and research / By Edward Mammatt. Illustrated by a map and profiles, coloured sections of the stratification and one hundred and two plates of vegetable fossils, after drewings taken from nature, by Robert Ironmonger. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    in every similar engagement. No section of a Shaft, descriptive of the strata and their appendages of hardness, thickness and dip, is required for the purpose of being a guide afterwards in other situations; and, indeed this precaution is sometimes so totally neglected by the Lessee or his bailiff, that, upon a future perforation, the appearances are almost forgotten, and evils recur which might have been guarded against. Neither is a plan of the workings, nor a section to shew dislocations in the strata and their liadings, required to be made and preserved as a guide in working another seam; but which seam is probably not granted to the Lessee who, conse¬ quently, has little or no interest in it. At the termination of the lease, therefore, or at a cessation of the winning, the future mode of operation is a speculation, which, although not capable of being reduced to any certain rule, might yet have been rendered more practicable by inferences drawn from former proceedings, if these had been recorded. One of the greatest evils, as well to the immediate worker as to his suc¬ cessor, is, that of allowing the water to pursue its course to the deepest part of the mine. This evil ought to be prevented by collecting the water from the several strata whence it issues, and then raising it from reservoirs by a regulated power. By such a process, much inconvenience, labour and expense, in lifting it from the bottom of the mine, would be avoided. All these considerations, so important to the owner of the mine, if correctly detailed, would add greatly to the stock of geological knowledge. In such records, also, would be perceived phenomena irreconcilable to many theories, and inexplicable by any hitherto promulgated. Details of this kind would aid in arriving at more correct views of the structure of the crust of the globe; but, they must be collected for successive generations, in a diversity of situations, and in various strata, before any decisive conclusions should be attempted to be drawn from them, as premises.