The Permians of the N. IV. of England. 7 1 



middle Permian rocks, as seen at Hilton Beck, consist of 

 cream-coloured shaly sandstone with thin partings of grey- 

 shale, and occasionally a narrow band of impure sandy 

 limestone. These beds contain a considerable number of 

 vegetable remains, among which Mr. Etheridge recognised 

 the following : — SpJienopteris Naumanni, S. dichotoma, Ale- 

 thopteris Goepperti, Ulmannia Selaginoides, U. Bronnii, (base 

 of cones shewing bracts) Odontopheris, SpJienopteris, and 

 Cardiocarpum triangulare ; portions of coniferous wood 

 also occur. Of these plants, two, viz., Ulmannia Selaginoides 

 and U. Bronnii are common at the base of the Magnesian 

 limestone of Durham, and the other forms occur also with 

 the Ulmanniae in the Kupferschiefer of Germany. These 

 Hilton fossils, therefore, indicate an absolute identity in 

 fossil remains with the Magnesian Limestone or Zechstein. 



Mr. Harkness remarks that these plant beds are 

 succeeded, upwards, by thin bedded sandstones, with 

 impure limestones and shales, the highest member of the 

 middle series being red clays, and that no clear evidence of 

 the occurrence of plants has yet been detected except by 

 the sides of Hilton Beck. In a similar section at Barrow- 

 mouth on St. Bees Head, succeeding quite conformably to 

 a Magnesian limestone band, is the highest member of the 

 middle series of Permian rocks. It is a mass of red shales, 

 containing fine white gypsum, which Mr. Binney estimated 

 at 29ft. thickness. 



The mineral character of this band is identical with the 

 middle portion of the Permian formation in the valley of 

 the Eden. At Barrowmouth also the Magnesian limestone 

 (which affords no fossils at Hilton) yields Permian fossils — 

 Schizodus Bakevillia,8ic. — just as we find them in the Permian 

 marls of Manchester. At Hilton the contemporaneous strata 

 contain yellow and grey shales with true Permian plants. 



Above these beds in the N.W. of England we have 

 the Upper Permians, the St. Bees, and Corby sandstones, 



