Geological Society, 315 



stricts of Brora in Scotland, and of Boll and Banz in Germany. 

 Sorae of the sinkings produced small pieces of jet or lignite like that 

 of Whitby j others nearer the escarpment went through the lias, and 

 reached brine springs in the subjacent red marl. 



Having proved that this basin of lias reposes upon the new red 

 sandstone, the author adverts to the almost unfathomable thickness of 

 strata by which it must be separated from the coal-measures. Three 

 fourths of this tract of lias are covered with thick accumulations 

 of gravel, sand and boulders, the nature and origin of which will be 

 pointed out on a subsequent occasion. With this sketch is connected 

 an account of a new base line of the lower lias which the author 

 has laid down upon the Ordnance map between Gloucester and Wor- 

 cester. It crosses to the right bank of the Severn in the neighbour- 

 hood of Tewkesbury, by Forthampton and Bushley, the lias occu 

 pying Longden Heath as an outlier. The lowest strata of the for- 

 mation are described as graduating into inferior green marls and 

 white sandstone of the new red sandstone at Combe Hill, Bushley, 

 Longden, Ripple, and Boughton Hill ; the characteristic strata a 

 little above the line of junction being thin, flag-like beds of blue 

 limestone and shale, characterized by Modiola Hillana, Ostreae, 

 Spines of Echini, Gryphc^a gigantea, 8^c. SfC. This clear escarp- 

 ment of the lower lias is of value, because the same strata are not 

 well exposed in the coast sections at W^hitby and Lyme. 



A paper was afterwards read entitled, " A general view of the 

 new red sandstone series, in the counties of Salop, Stafford, Wor- 

 cester, and Gloucester." By Roderick Impey Murchison, Esq., 

 V.P.G.S. 



Viewing the new red sandstone which occurs in parts of Salop^ 

 Stafford, and Worcester, in the extended sense first applied to it 

 by Mr. Conybeare*, as including all the deposits between the lias 

 and the coal-measures, the author endeavours to divide the group 

 into distinct subformations; an attempt which had not been made, 

 the whole having been hitherto laid down upon maps as one for- 

 mation. Following, as far as the structure of the country would 

 allow, the divisions established by Professor Sedgwick for the N. E. 

 of England, it is shown that the series is divisible into the under- 

 mentioned subformations : 



Foreign Equivalents. 



1. Red and green marls Keuper, 



2. Sandstone and conglomer Ates, .Bunter sandstein, Gres bigarre, 



3. Calcareous conglomerates. . . . Zechstein, S^c. 8^c. 



4. Lower red sandstone Rothe todte liegende. 



\. ** Red and Green Marls J' — These are best developed in Glouces- 

 tershire and Worcestershire, where they contain a subordinate white 

 sandstone, undistinguishable from certain varieties of the Keuper- 

 sandstone of the Germans. In the marls are situated most of the 

 brine springs, both in these counties and in Salop and Cheshire, 

 though some of them rise out of the inferior sandstone. But gyp- 

 sum is not so abundantly developed as in the south-western districts 



* Outlines Geol. Cii^land and Wales, p. 278. 

 2S2 



