THE TRENTHAM GRAVEL BEDS. 105 



The Permians of this locality consist principally of dull 

 brown and chocolate sandstones, with occasional intercala- 

 tions of clay and marl. At the crown of the second hill 

 west from this point a roadside cutting exposes a highly 

 calcareous hoematitic breccia, and overlying this occur some 

 whitish sandstones impregnated with green carbonate of 

 copper. A similar breccia also exists near the entrance 

 to the Spring Valley. I may here remark that I have 

 found in Swinnerton Park, running north and south, a 

 narrow ridge of basaltic rock not unlike Rowley rag. 

 About a mile to the east are situated the well-known 

 Beech Cliff quarries of Keuper sandstones, which supplied 

 the stone used in the erection of the old Trentham priory 

 and church. 



We now come to the consideration of the beds im- 

 mediately before us. The section, as may be seen, opens 

 up about 100 feet of coarse consolidated gravel, more 

 or less intersected by irregular bands or deposits of soft 

 pebbly sandstone. The colour of the beds is principally 

 a reddish-brown, but towards the base come in a thick 

 mass of soft, gritty, white and yellow sandstones contain- 

 ing comparatively few pebbles. The whole of the beds 

 dip rapidly to the west, and one may readily find therein 

 illustrative examples of false and current bedding, and other 

 evidences of turbulent action. Near the top of the sec- 

 tion is a band of dull red flaky sandstone, called by the 

 quarrymen "the silver mine," in consequence of the sur- 

 face of the laminas being thickly coated with glistening 

 mica. Running completely across the quarry at right angles 

 to the dip of the beds are two fissures from two to three 

 inches wide and filled in from above with fine clay or marl. 

 There are, besides these, numerous smaller fractures or 

 fissures which, however, have no uniformity of direction : 



