^'A^ LBCTURES ON OKOLOOY. 



Four rocky ridg-es, divided by vallies which intersect them down to 

 their bases. Their direction lies north and south, almost parallel 

 to the upper hill which they join, and then diverge from it a little 

 to the east. All the ridges are composed of quartz, stratified, and 

 dipping generally to the south west, with an angle of 30° but at 

 the northern end the dip is northerly, and in some places the strata 

 are almost horizontal. At the south the quartz is thrown back by 

 trap and transition limestone like that of Rowley and Dudley. 

 The limestone occurs, with coal and old red sandstone, towards the 

 north, lying upon cornstone or calcareous breccia. Coal has been 

 found in the angle between the upper and lower hills. The quartz 

 rock consists of strata of various thickness, separated by clayey 

 slate containing mica, though but little mica is seen in the sub- 

 stance of the stone, the purest specimens of which consist of 

 hexagonal crystals of quartz, interspersed with grains of felspar 

 and oxide of iron. In the less perfectly formed stone the felspar is 

 in a state of decomposition, and has the form of veins, which 

 traverse the strata, splitting the rock into thousands of fragments, 

 to which the oxide gives a rusty tinge. The coarsest specimens 

 are merely grains of sand in a reddish cement, not to be dis- 

 tinguished from common sandstone ; and in this part of the rock 

 impressions of shells are observed, though the calcareous matter 

 has disappeared, or is converted into a greenish Haky marl. 



A section of the rock offers to the view a reddish sand, mingled 

 with irregular fragments of the subjacent rock. Below the sand, 

 the stones become more and more agglutinated, till they form a 

 hard reddish conglomerate of fragments of quartz, imbedded in a 

 niortary cement, without any appearance of stratification above, 

 but gradually passing into the stratified rock on which it lies. Iq 

 the stratified part large boulders of similar composition are imbed- 

 ded. The occurrence of these boulders in the solid rock, the great 

 inclination of the strata, and the masses of conglomerate that are 

 scattered even upon the summits of the hills, prove that the Lickey 

 has been subjected to several violent commotions since its forma- 

 tion in the depths of the ocean. It is probable that the formation 

 of the layer of conglomerate is still going on by means of the 

 cementing power which water acquires by the solution and subse- 

 quent deposition of the Silica it takes up in passing through sand. 

 A remarkable instance of this kind has occurred within the last 

 500 years in the river Dove, at Tutbury, where some of the treasure 

 of the Earl of Lancaster was found so firmly fixed in a breccious 

 mass, that it required a pick-axe to break it. 



A little manganese is found at the Lickey; and it is rather 

 curious that it is also found at Hartshill, on the edge of the War- 

 wickshire coal field, associated with quartz rock, basalt, and coal, 

 as at the Lickey. 



The impressions of shells that have been observed in the quartz, 

 where it passes into sandstone, are such as are met with in the 

 transition limestone, viz., anomise, pentameri, pectines, and encri- 

 nites. 



The next stratum above the old red sandstone, in the neighbour- 



