48 Reports and Proceedings — Geological Society of London. 



2. " The Permian Conglomerates of the Lower Severn Basin." 

 By W. Wickham King, Esq., F.G.S. 



The rocks thus described are the calcareous conglomerates in- 

 cluded in the Middle Permian of the Shropshire type, and exposed 

 north of the Abberley and Lickey Hills. Three calcareous horizons 

 occur, interstratified in sandstones or marls and surmounted by 

 the Permian breccia. It was the opinion of Eamsay and others 

 that the materials of the calcareous horizons and of the Permian 

 breccia had been brought fi-om the Welsh border; but Buckland and 

 Jukes, among others, claimed a southern derivation for those of the 

 Permian breccia, from local hill-ranges to the south. The latter 

 view accords with the fact that the pebbles composing these 

 calcareous horizons, and also the broken fragments constituting the 

 Permian bi'eccias north of the Abberley and Lickey Hills, are coarser 

 in the south-easterly direction, and gradually become finer to the 

 north-west. 



The fragments embedded in the Middle Permian calcareous bands 

 near the Lickey are chiefly of Archfean rocks, but in all the other 

 districts described there are very few rock-fragments older than 

 Woolhope Limestone. On the other hand, pebbles of dolomitic 

 Wenlock and Carboniferous Limestones are abundant, while 

 Aymestry Limestone, Old Red, Carboniferous, and Lower Permian 

 Sandstones occur in greater or less abundance ; and all these rocks, 

 except the Carboniferous Limestone, may be seen in sitii near at 

 hand to the south. A summary of work done in the Halesowen 

 Coal-measure conglomerates and in the Permian breccia north of the 

 Abberley and Lickey Hills is given, to bring out one of the lines of 

 argument adopted. 



(1) Kidges near the Lickey were denuded down to the Archaean 

 rocks in Upper Carboniferous time ; therefore, as might have been 

 expected, both the adjacent Upper Carboniferous conglomerate and 

 the Middle Permian calcareous cornstones are composed of such 

 fragments of Archaean rocks as are to be found in situ there, or at 

 Nuneaton ; and the Upper Carboniferous conglomerate is also largely 

 composed of Palfeozoic rocks identical with those in situ on the flanks 

 of the Lickey. 



(2) The Middle Permian calcareous conglomerates of the other 

 districts described are for the most part made up of fragments not 

 older than the Woolhope Limestone, which were presumably derived 

 by denudation from ridges which had become more extensive. 



(3) The Lickey ridges having been denuded to the Archeean rocks 

 and the more extended area to the Woolhope Limestone, the later 

 Permian breccias are composed of Archgean fragments near the 

 Lickey, but of rocks not newer than the Woolhope Limestone in the 

 other districts north of the Abberley and Lickey Hills. 



The author has for several years called the ancient ridges from 

 ■which these materials were derived the ' Mercian Highlands,' and 

 claims that the Paleeozoic and Archaean rocks composing the stumps 

 of these highlands lie almost entirely buried under the Trias of the 

 Midlands south and east of the S.E. Shropshire and S. Staffordshire 

 reeions. 



