HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



249 



plastic clay by which it is attached either to the side 

 of the woiking or to the front of the collier's cap. 

 Very different, however, are the Earl of Shrewsbury's 

 Brereton collieries, where six hundred yards below 

 the surface the rattle of machinery and the busy 

 throng of workers, almost make us forget that the 

 light is artificial, and that there is so tremendous 

 a barrier between us and the outer world. Many 

 a time have I beheld with wonder the myriads 

 ■of anthracosia in countless profusion studding the 

 black shales of the ceilings in all directions for miles 

 and miles. But the anthracosia, although so 

 abundant and close at hand, unfortunately finds no 

 place in these cases. A meagre collection of plants 

 from the Severn Valley Railway Cutting are the 

 •only representatives here of the graceful but withal 

 fantastic forms which remain to us of that magnificent 

 flora of carboniferous times. A few very fine bones 

 and teeth and spines of fish from Oreton appear to 

 be the only representatives here of the massive and 

 prolific limestones which underlie the coal measures. 

 Fossil remains of this formation, however, occur very 

 sparingly in this district. Some very fine examples 

 may be seen in the general museum. 



The Permian rocks are exposed in the north-east 

 side of the Malvern Hills, particularly at Woodbury 

 and Stagbury. There is also a very interesting ex- 

 posure near Knightwick Station, where it is known as 

 " Rosemary " rock. It is a coarse breccia and some 

 of the enclosed boulders are from one to two feet in 

 length. No fossils however of this age are found in 

 the district. According to Sir Andrew Ramsay, 

 " this Permian breccia is probably of glacial origin, 

 simply old boulder clays formed at a glacial period in 

 Permian times, its materials having been brought 

 down into this district by ice from the neighbour- 

 hood of the Longmynd in Central Shropshire, where 

 all the formations represented in its derived rock 

 fragments occur at present in natural juxtaposition." 

 The fragments include volcanic "tufts, altered 

 shales, grits and fossiliferous sandstone and lime- 

 stones, all embedded in a paste of bright red marl or 

 pebbly sandstone." Mr. H. B. Woodward, of the 

 Geological Survey, says that the glacial origin of 

 these rocks has been disputed by Professor Bonney 

 and others, who consider the polishing and scratching 

 of the boulders to be due to the friction between the 

 stones themselves. Might not this disputed point be 

 investigated and verified by the Worcester Y. M. C. A. 

 Rambling Club ? 



By some geologists the Permians are classed with 

 the Triassic rocks under the name of New Red 

 •Sandstone, and placed at the base of the Mesozoic 

 group. Others place the Permians at the top of the 

 Palaeozoic group, and regard the series as a fitting 

 termination to the older system of rocks. As a 

 matter of fact the Permians are allied by their fossil 

 •contents to the Palceozoic group and by their litho- 

 logical characters to the Triassic system. 



The Bunter sandstone is the lowest member of the 

 Trias, and a year or two ago might have been seen 

 exposed at the back of the Belle Vue stables, 

 Malvern, flanking the hills, but it ij now obscured 

 by buildings. The beds are totally unfossilifemus. 

 Upon them rest the waterstones, or pebble-beds, 

 which in their turn are overlaid by the Keuper 

 Marls, a series extending from the Malverns to 

 Bredon. The sandstones and pebble beds are noted 

 for their water-bearing characteristics, and it is into 

 these beds that the trial bore-hole has been made at 

 Charford, about which we have for some time heard 

 so much at the city council meetings. 



Mr. G. E. Roberts has pointed out, what must be 

 obvious to the most casual observer, that in passing 

 from Worcester to Crowle we mount a series of 

 ridges, sloping terraces leading to yet higher ground, 

 each of which is as clearly an upward step in the 

 geological ladder as it is in the surface level of the 

 country. We are climbing as it were up to the 

 Lias. The Keuper beds yield but few fossils, the 

 seas of that period being so highly charged with salts 

 of iron, chloride of sodium (common salt), and 

 sulphate of sodium (gypsum) as to make it preju- 

 dicial to life, and to resemble in some degree the 

 conditions prevailing in the region of the Dead Sea of 

 our own day. Pallastrci arenicola is said to have been 

 obtained from the Crowle escarpment ; and foot- 

 prints of the Labyrinthodon, with bones and teeth, 

 have also been met with. 



At Dunhampstead the Rfoetic beds are faulted 

 against the Keuper Marls, but beyond a few worm- 

 tracks appear to yield no fossils, and in this respect 

 differing considerably from the rhcetics of Westbury 

 and Penarth, where the beds are most prolific. The 

 nearest exposures of the lias are at Himbleton, 

 Crowle, and Broughton Hackett, where the lowest 

 beds, the contemporaries of the zone of Ammonites 

 planorbis of Yorkshire, come to the surface At 

 Bredon Hill there are good sections of the middle 

 lias or marlstone, the upper lias and the inferior 

 oolite. The fossils from the blue lias are represented 

 in this museum by worm-tracks, spines of cidaris, 

 and mollusca from Broughton Hackett ; very fine 

 remains of fish and saurians, and various shells from 

 Himbleton. In the wall-cases on the stairs there is 

 an upper jaw and vertebrce of a saurian from Bushley, 

 and another specimen with a paddle from Crowle. 



It is an interesting and pleasant walk to Broughton 

 Hackett either by the main road or across the fields. 

 From Wyld's Lane the first of a series of ridges is 

 seen capped by Perry Wood ; and in the bridle-path 

 which runs through the wood the marl assumes a 

 rocky nature, breaking into rhomboidal fragments 

 and exhibiting pseudomorphous crystals. Beyond 

 the crest of the ridge there is a level expanse of 

 country for about half a mile. The pathway skirts 

 the Nunnery Wood and leads into the main road at 

 Swinesherd. Another half-mile brings us to the 



