The History of Oswestry: Comprising the British, Saxon, Norman, and English eras; the topography of the borough; and its ecclesiastical and civic history; with notices of botany, geology, statistics, angling, and biography: to which are added sketches of the environsCathrall, William
History
The History of Oswestry: Comprising the British, Saxon, Norman, and English eras; the topography of the borough; and its ecclesiastical and civic history; with notices of botany, geology, statistics, angling, and biography: to which are added sketches of the environs
Cathrall, William
Natural history -- England -- Shropshire; Oswestry (England) -- History
The town of Oswestry is situated upon and near the southern termination
of the North Wales Coal Field, which extends a little farther south of
the town, and, north-west, through Ruabon, Brymbo, Flint, Mostyn, and on
to the sea, near the Great Ormshead. Running parallel, and lying at the
back, or to the west of these coal-measures, is the great belt of
mountain limestone, commencing at Llanymynech Hill, and extending also,
north-westerly, to the Ormshead, and from thence dipping into the sea.
The metalliferous character of the district is distinguished for the
production of lead, copper, and zinc. Trials have been made for minerals
at Treflach Wood, and portions of carbonate and sulphuret of copper, of
average qualities, have been found, but not in sufficient quantities to
justify extended operations. At Llanymynech Hill both copper and lead,
sulphurets and carbonates, with carbonate of zinc, or calamine, have been
raised in large quantities by various companies, and occasionally the
ores have reached a high per centage, ranging from five to twenty-five
per cent. The ores are found in beds or flats, at from thirty to fifty
yards from the surface, and lying between, and running parallel with, the
strata of limestone that inclose them. It is an extraordinary fact, that
the metalliferous belt of limestone abruptly terminates at the south end
of the hill, and cannot be traced farther. Proceeding west, at the back
of Oswestry, in Treflach Wood, there are some fine beds of Derbyshire
marble or entrochal limestone, that have been worked for mantle-pieces
and other ornamental purposes.
Trials have been made, and small quantities of lead and copper found in
this limestone belt, extending to Minera, including the Eglwyseg range
which bounds a portion of the Vale of Llangollen, near to Ruabon.
The Minera district is too well known for its rich mineral products,
especially of lead and zinc, to require particular notice, and the same
may be said of the Mold, Halkin, and Holywell mineral formation, passing
on with continued fine mineral deposits, to Talargoch, near Prestatyn, in
Flintshire.
The coal-measures in the district of Oswestry abound in fossils,
_Lepidodendrons_, _Sigillaria_, _Stigmaria_, and _Calamites_, &c.; and
the carboniferous limestone is much more prolific of that class of
fossiliferous productions which usually accompany the old mountain
limestone.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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