Extract

Not being able to be present at the discussion at Leeds concerning the proposed section between this Coal Field and that of Lancashire, and as Mr. James Heywood informs me that a committee was appointed at the last meeting at Manchester to determine the best line, and also the proper scale upon which the section may be projected, I hope it may not be too late to offer a few observations upon the subject.

In the first place then, in order to form a correct section of the minerals and strata of a country, it is absolutely necessary that it be made at right angles to the range or “line of strike” of the different beds. But the “line of strike” is determined by the course in which the major axis, upon which any country is elevated, may run; and it is therefore necessary in the first place, that the direction of the axis be well ascertained round the margins of those Coal Fields, and accurately laid down on a map. Now, it is well known that the elevation of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Coal Fields is due to forces which have operated over a very extensive region, extending from the Tyne, in Northumberland, to the Peak of Derby; the effects of which forces are indicated by lines of dislocation and anticlinal axes, traversing those countries in various directions, as seen in the diagram: but these great axes seldom preserve the same course for many miles together: thus from Brampton, ...