314 
ine of railway being systematically surveyed by a competent ob- 
Server, while the cuttings are in progress. 
Anxious to contribute towards so desirable an end, Mr. Strickland 
gladly yielded to a request made to him by Captain Moorsom, the 
chief engineer of the Birmingham and Gloucester Railway, to un- 
dertake a geological survey of the line; and he expresses his obliga- 
tions to that gentleman and to Captain J. Vetch for the valuable as- 
sistance they afforded him. The line was originally surveyed by 
Mr. Burr, when only the trial shafts had been sunk, and before the 
cuttings were commenced; but Mr. Strickland bears testimony to 
the accuracy of the account which Mr. Burr laid before this So- 
ciety.—(Geol. Proceedings, vol. ii. p. 593.) 
The direction of the railway ranges nearly parallel to the strike 
of the strata, and therefore intersects only the new red sandstone 
and red marl, the lias, and superficial detritus. 
New red sandstone and red marl.—The lowest rock exposed be- 
longs to the new red or bunter sandstone, resting on the anticlinal 
axis of the Lickey, ten miles south-south-west of Birmingham, and 
one mile south of the termination of the altered rock, or Lickey 
Quartz*. The sandstone is there thick-bedded, soft, and red, and 
dips on the western flank about 5° west-south-west, and on the 
eastern 5° east-south-east. In Grovely Hill, on the north-east of 
the Lickey, it passes occasionally into a hard quartzose conglomer- 
ate with a calcareous paste}; and at Finstal, on the south-west of 
the Lickey ridge, the upper portion of the sandstone is light-coloured, 
and contains obscure vegetable impressions, being a prolongation of 
the stratum, with similar impressions, at Breakback Hill, on the 
west of Bromsgrove {. 
On each side of the Lickey, the sandstone is conformably overlaid 
by red marl, which extends on the north-east to Birmingham§, and on 
the south-west to Stoke Prior and the neighbourhood of Hadnor, 
where the railway intersects a ridge of lias. On the north side the 
marl is there cut off by a fault, but on the south, at Dunhamstead, 
the following juncture section is exposed :— 
(a.) Lias clay with contorted beds of lias limestone. 
(.) White micaceous sandstone, with numerous speci- 
mens of asmooth oval bivalve . . . . . 2 Feet 
Gees )i Matas, Clay iieie di) iaihin'e. olilog, evga eyiee wate ea ke Ula mae 
@s) Grey, marl | iio) suihe ey ve dates Cay halle mea ae aS 
(Es) GRedimarl ey iar Tiel ae eles <i el ane 
Dip of the beds 5° north-north-east. 
* See Mr. Murchison’s Silurian System, p. 492. 
+ Similar conglomerates occur in Worcestershire, Staffordshire, and. 
Warwickshire.—Silur. Syst., p.42. Geol. Trans., 2nd Series, vol. v. 347. 
{ Geol. Trans., 2nd Series, vol. v. p. 341; Proceedings, vol. i. p. 564. 
§ The red marl extends from Birmingham along the London railway as 
far as Berkswell, forming the basin, in which occurs the lias outlier of 
Knowle south-west of Berkswell. The true boundary of the sandstone and 
marl in this district has been only recently ascertained; it ranges from 
Hewell Grange, nearly north, by Cofton Hacket to Northfield, and thence 
north-east to the south suburbs of Birmingham, 
