378 Geological Society* 



coal-field cannot be detected. The great fault at Stanley, near 

 Higley on the Severn, has been caused by an upcast of the old red 

 sandstone, which there occupies both banks of the river, abruptly 

 cutting off the coal-measures. Allusion is then made to a short no- 

 tice* of this tract, in which concredonary calcareous rocks are de- 

 scribed as being subordinate to these coal-measures, but Mr. Mur- 

 chison shows that these rocks are nothing more than protruding 

 masses of cornstone of the inferior old red sandstone. He further 

 describes, in detail, a section extending from one of these masses of 

 concretionary limestone near Kinlet to Prescot Bridge. In this sec- 

 tion there is a full development of the superior group of the old red 

 sandstone, which although incoherent and of a yellow colour, and 

 therefore unlike the prevailing rocks of that formation, is seen to 

 pass upwards into a conglomerate, and dip under the true carbo- 

 niferous limestone of Orelton. It is this tract of old red sandstone 

 which separates the stinking-coal-fields of Bewdley Forest from the 

 productive coal-fields of the Clee Hills. 



V. <' Coal-field ofNevoent, North Gloucestershire." 

 The carboniferous strata are here so little developed as scarcely 

 to entitle them to the name of a coal-field, being composed of merely 

 a ^Q^ carbonaceous beds, interposed between the new and old red 

 sandstones. In the vicinity of the town of Newent, where the 

 formation is most expanded, four thin seams of coal were formerly 

 worked, which were separated from each other by only a ievf yards 

 of shale. In some cases the coal was extracted from beneath the 

 new red sandstone. The extension of these carbonaceous strata is 

 cut off in the south and south-west by the transition rocks of May 

 Hill ; while to the north they gradually taper away, and are abso- 

 lutely seen to thin out between the escarpment of new red sand- 

 stone and the argillaceous marls of the old red ; hence the author 

 concludes that the Newent coal strata were originally deposited upon 

 old red sandstone, in a similar manner to those of the Brown Clee 

 Hills, the Forest of Wyre, ike, &c. 



In concluding his reports upon these detached coal-fields, the 

 author gives the following as the positions which he has attempted 

 to establish : 



1st, The existence of a younger zone of coal, which contains a 

 peculiar freshwater limestone, and passes upwards into the oldest 

 strata of the new red sandstone, (Shrewsbury coal-field.); and down- 

 wards into the inferior coal strata of Coalbrook Dale. 



2ndly, That the inferior coal strata were deposited in some parts 

 upon mountain limestone and in others upon the old red sandstone 

 and transition rocks. 



3rdly, That the Clee Hill fields exhibit only the lower system, 

 graduating down in two situations to mountain limestone, and in 

 others resting upon old red sandstone. 



4«thly, That in the Brown Clee Hills, the Forest of Wyre, and at 

 Newent, the carbonaceous matter was originally deposited upon the 

 old red sandstone. 



* Geol. Proceedings, vol. ii. p. 20. 



