COAL UNDER SOUTH-EASTERN ENGLAND. 143
(700 feet in thickness) at 1,113 feet from the surface,1 and in our own
district an association has been formed for investigating the
question. The "Eastern Counties Coal-Boring and Development
Association" was started to raise funds to make borings
in various parts of the Eastern Counties, for "the purpose
of ascertaining the position of the Coal seams, which, in the
opinion of experts, almost certainly exist in East Anglia, and also
to open up and develop the same." Under the auspices of the
Association, Dr. J. E. Taylor has delivered several very instruc-
tive lectures, and in "The East Anglian Daily Times" and
other newspapers popular articles on the subject have appeared
from time to time, proving the interest which the public is now
taking in this important question. Shares equal to about £5,000
have already been subscribed for the purpose of the proposed opera-
tions, which will be commenced during the ensuing autumn. The
recently-published account of the discovery of Palaeozoic rocks (of
somewhat doubtful age) at Culford, near Bury St. Edmunds,
at a depth of only 6371/2 feet, has doubtless quickened the
desire for experimental borings in the Eastern Counties.2 The
association has obtained permission from the Tendring Hundred
Water Company to use an abandoned bore-hole which was put
down at Bradfield in Essex on the southern bank of the Stour, nine
miles west from Harwich. This bore goes to the depth of
463 feet, and could be deepened to a further 500 feet at a small
expense. More recently, we understand, a tender has been accepted
for an experimental boring to be commenced forthwith, at Stutton, in
Suffolk. Stutton is on the north bank of the Stour, eight miles south
of Ipswich, seven miles north-west of Harwich, and three miles
south-east of Bentley Station on the Great Eastern Railway. The
boring operations are to commence on the estate of Mr. Wm. Isaac
Graham, one of the principal landowners of the parish. Mr. Holmes,
Dr. J. E. Taylor, and Mr. Whitaker, have been advising the Associa-
tion, and the two reports which are here given were prepared to
1 It was stated in "The East Anglian Daily Times," of April 20th, 1893, that a "few of the
plants from the Coal Measures found in the Dover boring are now on exhibition in the Fossil-
Plant Gallery at the British Museum of Natural History, South Kensington. They were
presented to that establishment by the engineer, Mr. Francis Brady, together with portions of
the solid cores. The fossil plants" in question prove that the Dover coal at present struck is on
the horizon of the upper part of the Middle Coal Measures, so that there is every probability of
the occurrence of other productive seams lower down. The specimens were obtained from two
horizons—namely 1,262 feet and 2,234 feet from the surface of the ground."
2 The fullest information about the borings at Culford and Ware will be found in a paper by
Messrs. Whitaker and Jukes-Browne, published in the "Quarterly Journal of the Geological
Society," vol. 1., pp. 488-514 (August, 1894), "On Deep Borings at Culford and Wingfield, with
Notes on those at Ware and Cheshunt."