315 
In the hill south of Dunhamstead, the grey marl (d) abuts against 
the red marl (e) in consequence of a fault. For the next five miles 
the railway traverses a valley of red marl, between the escarpment 
of the lias and a ridge of Keuper sandstone. On the south-east of 
Spetchley the strike of that sandstone is altered by a fault from 
south by east to south-west, and a projecting angle has been pro- 
duced which is intersected by the railway. This stratum isa feeble 
representative of the Keuper sandstone of Burg Hill, &c.*, con- 
sisting chiefly of greenish marl with thin laminz of white sand- 
stone, about twenty feet thick, with red marl above and below. 
At Norton the railway ascends the lias escarpment, and cuts through 
a section exactly analogous to the one given above. A mile 
further south the lias clay contains many calcareous concretions 
abounding with fossils, including Plagiostoma giganteum, Modiola 
minima, and a coral. At Abbot’s Wood the fissile sandstone at the 
base of the lias is again exposed, having been brought up by a fault. 
At Defford and Eckington the lias clay encloses numerous speci- 
mens of Pachyodon Listeri (Stuchbury), or Unio Listeri, of Sowerby, 
and Ammonites Turnert. At Bredon a higher portion of the lias 
series was reached, and a different suite of fossils found, the most 
marked being Pleurotomaria Anglica, Hippopodium ponderosum, Gry- 
phea incurva, Nautilus striatus, and several species of Ammonites. 
Between Cheltenham and Gloucester the lias has yielded great 
abundance of organic remains, a considerable number of which are 
considered to be new, and with the exception of Hippopodium pondero- 
sum, Gryphea incurva, and one or two others, they are distinct from 
the fossils of Bredon Hill; and at Hewlitt’s, east of Cheltenham, the 
lias near the base of the marlstone presents another series of distinct 
fossils. The lower lias, therefore, Mr. Strickland observes, affords 
evidences of at least four well-marked successions of molluscous 
faunz, in a vertical height of 400 or 500 feet, and unaccompanied 
by any change in the mineral character of the deposits. 
SUPERFICIAL DETRITUS.— [he author then proceeds to describe the 
deposits of superficial detritus, and he states, that they entirely con- 
firm the views which he had previously entertained, respecting the 
distinction between the ancient terrestrial alluvia in which bones of 
mammalia occur, and the submarine drift which covers most parts 
of the islandt. 
He divides the detritus into fluviatile and marine, and the latter, 
according to its origin, into local and erratic, and this, according to 
its composition, into gravel with flints and without flints. 
Marine erratic gravel without flints{—Commencing his details with 
the Birmingham end of the line, Mr. Strickland shows, that these 
accumulations occur extensively on all sides of that town, and at in- 
tervals along the line of the railway till it approaches the valley of 
* Proceedings, vol. ii. p. 503. Geol. Trans., 2nd Series, vol. v. p. 332. 
tT See Reports of the British Association, vol. vi., Sessional Meetings, 
p- 61. 
t Northern drift of Mr, Murchison, Silur, Syst., p. 523. 
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