Westgarth Forster

Westgarth Forster (1772 to 1835) was a mining engineer and geologist of the north of England. Born at Coalcleugh in Northumberland, the son of a mining engineer of the same name, he worked for about two decades as mine agent at the Allenheads and Coalcleugh mines and afterwards as a consultant surveyor and author. He is remembered above all for A Treatise on a Section of the Strata from Newcastle-upon-Tyne to the Mountain of Cross Fell in Cumberland, first published in 1809 and greatly enlarged in a second edition of 1821. Drawing on mine records, it set out the Carboniferous rocks of the region in vertical sequence, and its long composite section, over a thousand metres thick, was a notable achievement before geological maps existed. The book also discussed prospecting for ore and working mineral veins, including the method of hushing from hillside dams. A third edition appeared in 1883, and miners and geologists of the region continued to quote him as an authority.