273 



ON THE PASSAGE BEDS IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD 

 OF WOOLHOPE AND ON THE DISCOVERY OF A 

 NEW SPECIES OF EURYPTERTJS AND SOME NEW 

 PLANTS IN THEM. 



BY THE REV. P. B. BRODIE, M.A., VICAR OF ROTVTNGTON. 



The "Passage beds " between the upper Silurian rocks and the old Red 

 Sandstone on the outer area of the Woolhope valley, although they have been 

 already noticed by Sir R. Murchison, Professor Phillips, Strickland, Symonds, 

 and myself at Hagley, Perton, Tarrington, and Ledbury, have not in this 

 district received the attention they deserve, for although they are of com- 

 paratively limited vertical thickness when compared with the finer and more 

 complete sections at Downton and the Ledbury tunnel, they occupy a larger 

 extent round the valley of Woolhope than has been previously recognised, and 

 contain some new and interesting species of fossils. 



At Putley, near the road from Ledbury to Woolhope to the N.E. of 

 the latter village, a remarkable bed of very hard, horizontal Sandstone, com- 

 posed mainly of small pieces of quartz in a sandy matrix, overlying a stratum 

 of white and yellow clay used for making tiles, may be seen in a brickyard to 

 the depth of about 3 or 4 feet, the blocks of sandstone averaging about 2 feet in 

 thickness. I could find no fossils in it, and it had very much the aspect of 

 a volcanic rock ; but my friend, Professor Phillips, to whom I sent a specimen, 

 recognised it at once, and states that he believes it to have been derived from 

 trappean and other plutonic rocks, though it may be presumed to be one of the 

 beds of sandstone belonging to this series. About two miles to the south of 

 Putley, at a farm called Chandler's, there is a sandstone quarry, having a dip to 

 the N.E., which yields large blocks 1 foot and % square, a portion of which is of a 

 very dark colour, almost black, similar to the peculiar volcanic-looking rock 

 just referred to, and at one place the strata are much contorted, being thrown 

 up in a small anticlinal. Prom the top of Marcle-hill for at least three-quarters 

 of a mile, in a lane leading to the quarry at Chandler's, on each side of it there 

 is a thin band of Sandstone running parallel with the road but no "Olive Shales " 



