~PROCEEDINGS 
OF 
THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. 
Vou. III. Parr II. 1842. No. 89. 
May 4. Arthur Marshall, Esq., of Headingley, near Leeds ; 
William Stutfield, Esq., Montagu Place; and H. L. Pattinson, Esq., 
of Bensham Grove, Gateshead, were elected Fellows of this Society. 
A letter addressed to the President by Mr. Ick, F.G.S., on some 
superficial deposits near Birmingham, was first read. 
While excavating that part of the New Junction Canal which 
passes through the valley of the Rea, at Saltley, a mile and a half 
north-east of Birmingham, the workmen at the depth of five feet 
came to a deposit of carbonaceous matter, consisting of compact 
peat, in which were imbedded rounded pebbles of white quartz, 
and branches as well as prostrated trunks of oaks, hazels and wil- 
lows, the former being occasionally upwards of six feet in length. 
The wood exhibited various stages of carbonization, some speci- 
mens being reduced to a soft state, while others, “ consisting of 
vak, were scarcely so much changed as the timbers of the Royal 
George.” . The author did not observe an instance of coniferous 
structure. About 150 yards from the river the deposit is two feet 
and a half thick, and contains abundance of hazel-nuts. ‘The horn 
of a stag, probably of the Cervus elephas, which was found there, 
measured from the base to the broken tip of the extreme antler one 
foot seven inches, and eight and a half inches around the base, and 
the brow antler was nine inches in length. At the distance of 
twenty yards, where the peat was mingled with gravel, the core of 
the horn of an ox was found, one foot in circumference at the base, 
and one foot eight inches long. 
At the bottom of the peat is generally a thin layer composed prin- 
cipally of angular particles of white quartz, beneath which occurs 
the usual marine drift of the district, the greater part of the boul- 
ders contained in it, consisting of Lickey quartz-rock, and the whole 
rests on the new red sandstone. Above the carbonaceous bed is a 
stratum, from six to eighteen inches thick, of fine clay, frequently 
almost white, but in some instances of various shades of yellow and 
red. Upon the clay is occasionally a bed of coarse gravel com- 
posed of the usual Lickey pebbles, and over it occurs a pale red 
sand, which gradually passes upwards into a sandy vegetable. The 
average thickness of these overlying deposits is five feet. 
At a spot about 250 yards from the river, the place of the peat 
is occupied by a bed of gravel composed principally of boulders 
from eight to ten inches in circumference; and above it lies the 
prevalent light-coloured clay eighteen inches thick. The next stra- 
VOL. III. PART Il. 30 
