Geological Society of London. 321 



Prof. Hughes was most grateful to Mr. Godwin- Austen for attacking those difScult 

 beds the Trias and the Permian. In the Vale of Clwyd, which he had recently been 

 mapping, he had found it almost impossible to distinguish them. The bulk of the 

 Permian fossils had by some authors been transferred to the Carboniferous, and in 

 other respects this province had been severely trenched upon. StUl, as the New Red 

 Sandstone belonged to a lengthened period of denudation, there was ample room for 

 change of climate. He did not, however, think that the occasional presence of large 

 blocks in the drifted deposit was by itself sufficient proof of glacial action, as when 

 once a block of stone was moved, the carrying power of water was very great. He 

 did not agree with the author as to the exact parallelism between the English and 

 Irish deposits ; and cited an instance near Tebay of Permian conglomerates passing 

 into Carboniferous limestone, and with no characteristic whatever of a glacial origin. 

 He doubted, therefore, as to the application of a glacial theory to this formation. 



Mr. A. Tylor inquired whether the beds might not be of some intermediate date 

 between the Carboniferous and Quaternary, like certain Belgian beds of the same 

 character which were possibly of Cretaceous age. 



Mr. Blanford suggested the possibility of the beds being of sub-aerial origin. In 

 Persia and Beloochistan, on the borders of what appear to be old lakes, is a vast 

 accumulation of detritus, occasionally containing enormous blocks of rock, and some- 

 times ten miles in breadth, and of the character of a brecciated deposit. The thick- 

 ness in places appears to be at least 1000 feet; and the whole of this deposit he 

 ascribed to the wash on the shores of the lake. He pointed out that the old division 

 of all geological deposits into primary, secondary, etc., was not applicable in India, 

 and, in fact, oflfered obstacles to research. 



Prof. Hull commenced his reply by reading a letter from Prof. Ramsay, who agreed 

 with him that the beds in question at Armagh were of truly Permian age. He main- 

 tained, in opposition to Mr. Austen, that there was to be traced a great break between 

 the Permian and Triassic strata. There was, according to his view, as great an un- 

 conformity between these beds as there was between the Carboniferous and the 

 Permian. The lines of flexure and disturbance at the commencement and close of 

 the Permian period had been in diflferent directions, and had he thought led to some 

 of the discrepancies mentioned by Prof. Hughes. He insisted on the correspondence 

 between the beds at Armagh and those of Worcestershire and Shropshire. As to the 

 difference between the old Permian drift below and the Quaternary drift above, it 

 required to be seen to be appreciated, and was hardly susceptible of description. 

 The old drift was, however, redder, and bore greater traces of stratification than the 

 newer drift above. He could not regard the Permian Boulder beds as belonging to 

 the New Red Sandstone, by which they are, in fact, overlain at the city of Armagh 

 itself. A few limestone pebbles had been found in the old Boulder beds, but none of 

 them striated ; but he did not consider this circumstance as of much importance. 

 His main point was the occui-rence of Roth-todt-liegende beds in Ireland, where only 

 the Zechstein had previously been known. 



2. " Geological Notes on Griqualand West." By G. W. Stow, Esq., F.G.S. 



The geological results of a journey made by Mr. G. W. Stow and Mr. F. H. S. 

 Orpen from the Orange Free State into Griqualand West are communicated by Mr. 

 Stow in this paper, with numei'ous carefully executed sections and a geological map 

 based on the survey map prepared by Mr. Orpen for the Government. From the 

 junction of the Riet and Modder Rivers (south of the Panneveldt Diamond-fields) 

 westAvard to the junction of the Vaal and the Ornnge, over the Great Campbell 

 Plateau to Griquatown, Ongeluk, Matsap, Potgieter, the Langeberg, Witte Zand, and 

 to Kheis and the Schurwe Bergen, the track traversed three degrees of longitude, 

 but nearly 300 miles of road. The return route north-east to Mount Huxley and 

 Daniel's Kuil, and eastward to Likatlong, on the Hart or Kolang River, was nearly 

 as long, and its results form part of the present communication. A subsequent por- 

 tion of the journey up the Hart, across to the Vaal, down the valley by the Diamond- 

 diggings of Hebron and Klipdrift to the Panneveldt, will be treated of in another paper. 



From the Modder, first south-westward and then westward, to the junction of the 

 Vaal and Orange, the olive shales of the Bicynodon- or Karoo-series, traversed fre- 

 quently by igneous rocks, form the country, and are seen in some places to lie uncon- 

 formably on older rocks. The shales reach to the edge of the Campbell Randt, on 

 the other side of the Orange River, and have been, it seems, formed of the debris of 

 those old hills to a great extent. The oldest rocks of the locality are seen cropping 

 VOL. X. NO. cix. 21 



