♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



[Aug. 14, 1885. 



little line of lulls he is about to examine. Here the 

 strata have a slant or "dip" to the south-east of about 

 thirty-five degrees, and they rise vertically in the cutting 

 to a height of forty feet. The rock is a quartzite — a 

 very old, altered sandstone. Under the microscope, the 

 original grains of sand are still discernible in thin slices 

 of the rock, but they are compacted together by 

 an interstitial deposit of silica, left behind — ages ago — 

 l)y heated water, which then so-iked through the stone 

 Here ind theie specks of whitish decomposed felspar 

 lie Mbible in hand specimens The tint of the stone 

 is a greyish or pinkish white, but m some of 

 the quarrits at the southern end of the iidge a darkei 

 redder tinge prevails The rock is ver> much jointed 

 so that it is impossible to i,(t i si im 1 In ip ( f t i c f 

 ' M this 



with a Paiiamerus, and a little coral, Fetraia Una. These 

 fossils enable us to refer the sandstone to the Upper 

 Llaxdovep.t Bki>s (or Mmj Hill sandstone of Sedgwick) 

 which are ,.1-.. ,xl,. :--^ l,,r,,.r, to form i' ' 



upp , 



there is :i tinir l..,i!. I • . 

 magnitude. Tlie quu:,-i 

 metamorphosed into 1 | 



ven sandstone was di ] 

 set of locks IS no^ to 1 

 dip of the quiit/itt is i 



tl,r 



of ,.; 



Wilkmg noTN to the south east, ov er the first hum 

 mocky elevation whii^h lies before us — Rubery Hill — we 

 note other quariies on the road sidt m which the stiata 



XI ly horizontally, and it last thej 

 dip to the west, showmj^ that the stiuotuie of the 

 Lickej ridge is that o^ 

 few minutes walk bungs u& to a % illt 

 and comciding with a line of fault 

 -verj fiequently lines of weakness, fo 

 side of the actual line of diskx iti n\ 

 be moie oi less broken, fissui ^ i 

 The agents of denudation— t 

 ite — take advantage of tin 

 the rocks along the fiult liii 

 into a vallej or i ivme whose bi tti 

 by a stream or filled up with debi: 

 vegetation This is one leason why clear sections, show 

 mg the actual course of a fault, are not of more common 

 occurrence. 



Coming into the main road, which takes advantage of 

 the break in the ridge, we see another quartzite quarry 

 in front, while the gates of the large new Lunatic Asylum 

 are close at hand on the left. The roadside wall opposite 

 the Asj-lum gates is com])osed of a reddish friable sand- 

 stone, quite different from the hard quartzite of the hills, 

 and a little search is sufficient to discover on the rocky 

 slope beyond the wall the junction of the two rocks. 

 [See Map (2).] The quartzite is clearly the older of the 

 two, for the sandstone rests upon it and fills up hollows 

 and pockets as if it had been deposited on a sloping 

 shore ; moreover, it contains at its base well-rolled lumps 

 of the metamorphic rock as large as one's fist. 



A little search reveals the fact that the sandstone is 

 crowded with fossils, which are chiefly casts of a 

 biachiopod shell called StricUandinia Jirata, together 



I Permian. |^^^ Trias. 

 I Pre-cambrian. Prevailing dip shown bj arrows -^ . 



Crossing the road at this spot, which rejoices — or re- 

 joiced — in the name of Snead's Heath, we enter the 



Asylum grounds 'see Map (3)1, and turn sharply to the 

 right throiv.'l. ;> -:,,11 ! !:n. ration, a, TH.^s which a little 

 brook — one of T. - ■ . - : ;1,- U.a li:i.- rut :i cliiiimel, 

 with vertical :-: i ■ • • :" • • .Ic.ii. .\li:-tliis brook- 



course are cxp I - - ■ :':■■! -1' :!■ s and limestones 

 which rest u] : 1/ ... ■ ■; Intone. The thin 



limestone baml- i ■ - :iiul well-preserved 



fossils, which I liar ih.iii to |.i ]]'.,■ equivalent of the 

 Woolhope or iiarr limestone. .Searching still further to 

 the east, the coal-measure shales which cover the Silu- 

 rians are found, and beyond and upon all come Permian 



