The Birmingham, Shrewsbury, and Chester railway enters the county on the east at Albrighton, and runs through Shiffuell and Wellington to Shrewsbury, whence it runs north-west through Bas church, Whittington, Gobowen, and Chirk, where it crosses the Ceiriog into Denbighshire. From the Gobowen station a branch line of two miles in length runs to Oswestry. The Shrewsbury and Hereford railway runs south from Shrewsbury through Condover, Church Stratton, and down the vale of the Onny to Ludlow. The Shrewsbury and Stafford railway leaves the Birmingham, Shrewsbury, and Chester line at the Wellington station, and runs north-east past Newport Besides these great lines there are many short rail and tram roads, connecting the various mines with the furnaces, the Severn, and the canals in the Coalbrookdale district.
Geology and Severn nearly forms the division between the new red-sandstone system on the north, and the older formations on the south. An outlier of lies, situated between Whit church and Market-Drayton, lies in an elliptical basin, the new red sandstone rising from beneath, and forming around the lies on the south the hills of Hawkstone, and appearing on the east and south-east at Belton and Market-Drayton, on the north-cast in the rising ground extending towards Nantwich, and to the north-west iu the undulating country near Whitchurch. The greater part of this basin consists of lower lies shale, finely laminated; but the overlying subdivision of the marlatone is also apparent at Precs. The strata contain the characteristic fossils of the lies. This outlier is distant 60 miles from the nearest point of the great liar formation in Worcestershire and 'Warwickshire.
The new red-sandstone system, which rises from beneath and sur rounds the bed of lias, occupies the whole northern portion of the county, extending north and east into Cheshire and Staffordshire, and on the west passing into the coal formation of Chirk and Oswestry. On the south-west it warps round the edges of the Silurian rocks of Montgomeryshire, and extends for some miles south of the Severn to the coal formations about Westbury and Ponteabury, where the southern edge of the new red-sandstone overlies that coal-field which extends north-east to near Shrewsbury; but the sandstone again penetrates south to a narrow point near the Caradoc Hills, and is succeeded on the west by the coalfield of Lo Botwood. The edges of the rocks of the Silurian system extending north across the Severn, as well as the trap rocks of the Wrekin, again deflect the sandstone, the boundary line of which is extended still farther to the north-east from Wellington to near Newport, by the coal formation of Coalbrookdale, on the western edge of which field the sandstone again appears, and occupies the remainder of the county east of the Severn. The new
red-sandstone system in this part of England consists of saliferous marls and calcareous flags, red-sandstone and quartzose conglomerate, calcareous conglomerate, and lower red-sandstone. As the new red sandstone system in Shropshire occurs in the form of a basin, the lower members will appear towards the edges of that system ; and accordingly the lower red-sandstone is met with all along the line that forms the boundary of the system.
The coal-field of Coalbrookdale, the most extensive and productive in the county, extends from near Wenlock, on the right bank of the Severn, across that river to Wellington and Lilleshall, while a thin tortuous zone extends south to Tuley, within a short distance of Bridgenorth. On the north-west and east, this coal-field is bounded and overlaid by the lower new red-sandstone. On the west it is flanked by a thin zone of the lower Silurian rocks, and by the trap rocks of the Wrekin and Ercall Hills, and on the south by the old red-sand stone and upper Silurian rocks. In the ripper measures of this field there is a remarkable band of fresh-water limestone, the geological position of which is immediately under the youngest members of the carboniferous series. The coal and iron measures below it are generally more abundant in the northern than in the southern part of the field. The coal-meeaures on the east side of the field are not less than 1000 feet thick. The ironstone of this field is both concretionary and flat-bedded. The ores of iron are peroxides in sandstone, argil laceous carbonates in shale, and sulphurets in the coal. Petroleum occurs in great abundance in both the upper and lower measures, and some of the beds of shale of the latter afford excellent fire-clay, which is used in the manufacture of pipes and pottery. The Shrewsbury coal-field extends from the Severn at the Breiddin Hills on the west, to Shrewsbury on the east, and occupies a semicircular bey, of which Poutesbury is the southern point. The seams are separated from each other by red, green, and black shale, and clod.