94 Correspondence—Mr. E. Wilson. 
Profs. Ramsay and Green take a similar view.’ As Prof. Hull knows, 
rocks in all probability belonging to the Upper Coal-measures were 
reached at South Scarle directly beneath the Permians; whereas 26 
miles further west in the Erewash Valley district the Magnesian 
Limestone and underlying Marl Slates repose on measures low 
down in the Middle Coal series. 
Here, then, there is clear proof of an overlap of from 1,500 to 
2,000 feet at the least. There must have been great meridional 
(as well as Hast and West) foldings of the rocks, followed by 
extensive and long-continued denudation, between the close of 
the Carboniferous and the commencement of the Permian epoch. 
As some results of these foldings (and this denudation), were 
synchronously developed the Yorkshire Coal-basin synclinal and 
the inseparably connected Pennine range anticlinal. 
There is no similarity between the Permians on the opposite sides 
of the Pennine Chain. As the late Sir R. Murchison once remarked, 
“The most striking phenomenon in regard to the natural group 
(Permian) in Great Britain is its very dissimilar lithological character 
of the opposite sides of the central axis of the country... .. ae 
I did not overlook the paper Prof. Hull refers to.* In the discus- 
sion that ensued, several eminent geologists disputed the view of 
there being any decided difference between the “ Lower Permians of 
the Salopian” and of ‘the Lancastrian types.” Be that as it may, it 
is quite another thing from the Permians of the North-east and 
North-west types agreeing. JI failed then and I fail now to see any 
sufficiently close resemblance between these latter deposits to lead 
one to infer that they were continuously deposited. I am not per- 
sonally acquainted with, and therefore did not express any opinion as 
to the age of the 1500 feet of unfossiliferous red sandstone in the 
neighbourhood of Stockport. Prof. Ramsay refers to the “ lower red 
sandstones” of Lancashire as beds ‘‘ generally believed to represent 
the Rothliegende,” and as “so-called Rothliegende.”* Such phrases 
seemed to me to indicate a certain amount of doubt as to their identi- 
fication. In the absence of fossils, mineral character will not suffice 
to identify these deposits as Lower Permian. Neither will their un- 
conformability to Coal-measures. In Yorkshire the Rotherham Red 
Rock rests with a marked unconformity on Coal-measures, but is 
now rightly classed by the Government surveyors as belonging 
thereto. So many red rocks in the North of England, and elsewhere, 
once termed “ Rothliegende,” have been since shown to belong to 
some member or other of the Carboniferous formation—whilst others 
are as certainly Triassic—that geologists are advisedly cautious in 
dealing with any so-called rock. Let us assume, however, that in 
Lancashire a deposit of red sandstone attaining four or five, if not 
fifteen hundred feet in thickness, is Permian of some kind. Then my 
argument will not be weakened, but considerably strengthened ; for 
we have certainly nothing corresponding to such a series on this the . 
Report of the Royal Commission on Coal, vol. i. pp. 186-8, vol. ii. p. 504; 
Physical Geology of Great Britain, 3rd ed. p. 302. 
* Siluria, 5th ed. 1872, p- 336. 
3 Q.J.G.S. vol. xxv. p. 171, 4 Q.J.G.S. vol. xxvii. p. 245. 
