Notes on the Genus Lichas

Abstract

I. Introductory. During 1901 a boring was made near Lyme Regis in search. of coal, and was carried to the depth of 1300 feet without reaching the base of the Upper Triassic marls. The story of this endeavour to find coal at a place where no geologist would have recommended the attempt, is one which has often been repeated at different places. The undertaking was promoted by a ‘practical man’ who had experience of coal-mining in South Wales, and who had convinced himself that coal was likely to be found at no great depth near Lyme Regis. He obtained permission to bore, and induced a certain number of persons to form a syndicate, for the purpose of making a boring to ascertain the depth at which the expected Coal-Measures were to be found. The results of the boring have a twofold interest: first, to all people in the South-west of England they should be a warning against the folly of expecting to find Coal-Measures at a depth of less than 2000 feet below any part of Western Dorset; secondly, they are of interest to geologists, for the information which is thus afforded as to the great thickness of the Keuper Marls in Devon and Dorset. It was anticipated that coal would be reached at a depth of less than 600 feet, and when this limit was passed without success it was decided to continue the boring to 1200 feet. At this depth it would have been abandoned, had it not