EXAMINATION OF DRIFT. AAT 
is now not far off the top of the cutting, and may be expected to be 
found on the surface in the course of the next fifty or sixty yards. This 
band of coal and smut, if found only on the north side of the shoal, would 
indicate that the current of the then existent sea set in a southerly 
direction, and that the coal was abraded from the outcrop of the fire-clay 
and bottom coals between here and Bentley. 
One thing that struck me in Mr. Twigg’s paper was the absence of 
all note or remark as to the wavy appearance of the various bands of 
the deposit at this north end, indicating, as I take it, the shallowness of 
the water, or the depth and strength of the wave force. The appearance 
is very curious, and is well worthy of examination. The waviness 
referred to is shown in Fig. 67 of Richardson’s ‘‘ Geology and Paleontology,” 
1851 edition, though not from the same cause as in the woodcut. 
I should also like to direct attention to another cutting on the Old 
Grand Junction Line of Railway, about half-way between Newton Road 
and Great Barr Stations, where we find another instance of, I think, a 
shoal, but of very much grander dimensions than that just referred to 
near James Bridge. It begins near the present bed of the Tame, a little 
lower down than the Old Forge Pools, and runs inland for about a mile 
and a half, under “ the Hem” on the Ordnance one-inch maps, towards 
the Birmingham and Walsall Road. The section exhibited in the 
railway cutting shows the base rather more than half a mile wide, and 
the height of the bank or shoal is about 80ft. above the present level of 
the stream, or about 60ft. to 65ft. above the level of railway. At the 
bottom of this cutting we have sand, and as we go up we get sand mixed 
with pebbles, at first few in number, but increasing in quantity till we 
come to the top, where we get the ordinary drift gravel of the district 
capped with clay. 
- Ata height of about 25ft. to 30ft. above the rail level there may be 
found, sometimes in considerable quantities, pebbles or water-worn 
pieces of coal, varying in size from that of amarble to that of a cocoanut. 
These are principally found on the east side of the cutting, and from the 
configuration of the ground here it would appear as though this bank or 
shoal began to be formed against the high ground upon which the Walsall 
Road is situated, and was gradually extended to the point at which we 
now find it below the Old Forge. 
The whole of the various deposits, with their associated foreign 
contents, suggest the belief that the general contour of the country, as 
it exists at present, remains unchanged from the date of the last great 
immersion, and that no great dislocation or contortion has taken place 
during the many ages that must have elapsed since that immersion. 
I have, in these remarks, inadvertently used the words “ the ordinary 
drift gravel of the district,” but I do not think the gravels here are the 
ordinary drift gravels of the district. I think the gravels and pebbles 
about here are the gravels and pebbles of the bottom and shores of the 
sea—as it then existed—exactly similar to the gravels and pebbles lining 
the bottom and shores of now existing seas, and are in no sense to be 
confounded with the drift gravels covering such a large area of these 
Midland Counties, the component parts of the latter being principally 
derived from far distant localities, while those of the former are, on Mr. 
Twigg’s evidence, derived from sources comparatively near. 
