612 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION C. 



bottom. This conclusion as to age is supported by the age and relations to the 

 local ' Millstone Grit,' of the top of the Carboniferous Limestone Series in the 

 Forest of Dean and the Bristol area (op. cit.). 



(3) The 'Millstone Grit,' which consists largely of sandstones and conglome- 

 rates, is undoubtedly conformable with the Carboniferous Limestone Series, and, 

 as regards its base, is probably, from what has just been said, of Syringothyris 

 age, and therefore much older than the Millstone Grit proper. Unfortunately ils 

 marine fossils, found at but one horizon, are of no zonal value, but its plants, 

 from various levels, connect it, according to Dr. Kidston, with Lower Carbon- 

 iferous rocks, not wilh the Millstone Grit proper. The conclusion that tho 

 lower part is older than the Millstone Grit proper may therefore extend to the 

 whole, and it is suggested that a non-committal place-name be applied to this 

 formation instead of 'Millstone Grit.' 



(4) The Coal Measures include 'sweet,' i.e., non-sulphurous, coals at several 

 horizons from the base upward, and have yielded, besides a fairly rich flora, 

 a small marine fauna at one or two horizons. The most important point, however, 

 is the fact that they are not conformable with the ' Millstone Grit.' This 

 relationship has been revealed in a quarry, where their basal bed. a pebbly sand- 

 stone, rests at a low inclination and with marked discordance on evenly-dipping 

 beds of Grit ; and it affords the only satisfactory explanation of a transgression 

 of the Measures across the outcrops of the Grits, which is brought out by six- 

 inch mapping. 



As the ' Millstone Grit ' is. in part at least, much older than the rocks of that 

 name which underlie Coal Measures elsewhere, it becomes of interest to inquire 

 whether the break between it and the Coal Measures on Clee Hill corresponds 

 merely to the period of the Millstone Grit proper, or whether it includes some 

 part of Coal Measure time also. That is, what is the age of the base of the Coal 

 Measures on Clee Hill ? 



A feature of these measures is the presence in them of red clays and green 

 sandstones of 'espley' type, at intervals from a few feet above the base upward. 

 According to Dr. Walcot Gibson rocks of these characters are not known in Coal 

 Measures of other parts of England and Wales from any horizon lower than 

 the Etruria Marls or a short distance below. Stratigraphical evidence, also, sug- 

 gests that the Coal Measures of Clee Hill commence at this level. For there 

 is no doubt, as has been pointed out by Mr. Daniel Jones, but that the Clee Hill 

 measures are on the same horizon as the ' sweet coal series ' of the adjacent 

 Forest of Wyre coalfield. There, in the Kinlet district, the junction of this 

 series with the overlying sandstones which yield the 'sulphur coals' was found, 

 in the course of an extension of the work to that neighbourhood, to be probably 

 conformable; and therefore, as the sandstones have been recognised by Dr. 

 Gibson and Mr. T. C. Cantrill as representing the Newcastle-under-Lyme Series, 

 we may conclude that the ' sweet-coal series ' which, like the Clee Hill measures, 

 includes some red clays and ' espley 'like sandstones, corresponds to part of the 

 Etruria Marls. It may be added that the most recent Coal Measures on Clee 

 Hill are sandstones resembling the Newcastle Series of the Forest of Wyre, but 

 too thin (they form an outlier of a few acres extent) and poorly exposed to 

 yield further evidence of their age and relationships. 



Against the conclusion that the Clee Hill measures commence with a repre- 

 sentative of the Etruria Marls it may be urged that the latter in their typical 

 development 1 yield neither coal-seams nor the flora and fauna which have been 

 obtained on Clee Hill. Similar coals, however, occur elsewhere in England and 

 Wales at intervals up to much higher horizons, though not in association with 

 the typical Etruria Marl rock-facies. The objection based on the flora is of 

 greater weight, for Dr. Kidston finds that the plants are Middle Coal Measure 

 forms, and therefore suggestive of a horizon lower than the Etruria Marls. But 

 it may be remarked that the flora of the Blackband Group immediately below the 

 Etruria Marls — the latter yield but rare plants — includes no forms which do 

 not occur in the Middle Coal Measures below. 2 The fauna of the marine bands 

 is unfortunately of no horizonal value, though it includes a Productus which 



1 See Dr. Gibson, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc, vol. lvii., 1901, pp. 251 et seg. 



2 Dr. R Kidston, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. lxi., 1905, p. 318. 



