Vice-President's Address. 193 
this is probably one of the distinguishing characters of Coal- 
Measure sandstone as compared with those of Permian 
age.” } 
Such characteristics do not hold for the separation of 
Permian from Carboniferous rocks. The Upper Coal-Measure 
red shales, which partly surround the South Staffordshire Coal 
Field, have all the colour characteristics of Permian rocks, as 
generally defined, and are mapped as Permian on the Geological 
Survey Maps; but their fossil plants have shown them to be 
of undoubted Upper Coal-Measure age. I do not think that 
the colour of rocks gives any infallible indication of their 
age; it is certainly no test between Corboniferous and 
Permian rocks. The red colour of the rocks under con- 
sideration is adventitious, and may result from subsequent 
staining, derived from rocks that once overlay them, though 
now removed. 
The following tables show the correlations of the Scottish 
and English Carboniferous rocks, as proposed by some of 
the most recent writers on the subject. 
The first is taken from the Reports of the Congrés géo- 
logique international, 4me session, London, 1888, Appendix B; 
“Reports on Classification and Nomenclature;” 2nd edition, 
Report of Sub-Committee, No. IV. “ Carboniferous, Devonian, 
and Old Red Sandstone,” p. 153 (1891). 
1 Mem. Geol. Survey England and Wales—The Geology of the Country 
around Prescot, Lancashire, pp. 10, 11. London, 1882. 
