THE TRENTHAM GRAVEL BEDS. 



BY WILLIAM MOLYNEUX, F.G.S. 



THE section opened up by the gravel workings in Trent- 

 ham Park contains, I take it, as clearly as any section can 

 well do, the whole of the characteristic features which 

 distinguish the middle or conglomerate division of the New 

 Red Sandstone of the Midland counties. Consequently, it 

 is possessed of an interest which I trust may be found 

 sufficiently instructive to justify its selection as the place 

 of meeting of so many geologists and others, whose know- 

 ledge of the formation in other localities is doubtless both 

 extensive and accurate. 



Before referring particularly to the masses of rock and 

 gravel piled up before us, I may be excused for remarking, 

 as briefly as possible not for the purpose of offering in- 

 formation, but merely to explain the geological horizon of 

 these deposits that, taken in the ascending order of the 

 geological scale, the Coal Measures are succeeded by Per- 

 mian rocks, and these in turn by the Lower soft mottled 

 sandstones, and the Conglomerates or Pebble beds of the 

 Bunter group of the New Red Sandstone, as illustrated in 

 the deposit before us. 



In North Staffordshire the Coal Measures are estimated 

 at over 6,000 feet in thickness, the Permians at about 500 

 feet, and the two divisions of the New Red Sandstone at 



