498 John Randall — Geology of Linley Valley. 



No such passage-beds here conduct us from the Old Eed Sand- 

 stone to the Coal Measures, and even in cases where they do, as in 

 North Devon, of the 383 species of Devonian fossils known in Great 

 Britain and Ireland, only 56 are common to it and the Carboniferous 

 series, which contain 1748 — a fact which would seem to indicate 

 either very varied conditions or a wide difference in point of time. 

 The abruptness and suddenness of the change in passing from the Old 

 Eed to the Coal Measures is all the greater from the fact that here we 

 rise from the former formation into the upper members of the Coal 

 Measures ; and the question naturally arises as to whether the old 

 Coal Measures ever here rested upon the Old Eed Sandstone, now 

 capped by the New. Facts occur which indicate that they did ; 

 and supposing the Old Eed to have been the result of the silting up 

 of the wide area indicated, it will occur to the mind that conditions 

 were preparing for the growth of vegetation, by the formation of 

 land. 



It is worthy of remark, too, that on the high ground at Linley, 

 by the road-side, traces of the old or Lower Coal Measxn-es occur, 

 as well as on the high ground before descending the hill at the 

 Dean, where an anticlinal fault brings up the Aymestry Limestone. 

 Still stronger evidences are furnished by the facts that at Shirlot 

 and the Brown Clee Hills the connexion between the two is dis- 

 tinct. The evidence is equally conclusive that they have been 

 swept away altogether here, partially so to the north, at the Dunge, 

 where the ' Little Flint Coal ' crops oiit above, and the ' Lancashire 

 Ladies,' the lowest coal of the series, occurs a little below the road. 

 At Caughley, in the Deep pit, and in other shafts on that side, the 

 younger coals, together with the Spirorbis Limestone, overlap the 

 lower measures of the old coal-field. At Caughley the Spirorbis 

 Limestone appears on the surface, and is found in several old shafts 

 in the neighbourhood, about 180 feet above the Crawstone, the lowest 

 Ironstone of the series ; thus showing that the Coal Measures up to 

 the top coal have been destroyed. The extent to which these were 

 reduced, and the point at which denudation ceased, is marked by 

 what is called ' calamincar ' and the rough rock, the latter very un- 

 even and irregular in thickness, but a complete conglomei'ate, having 

 above it the usual brick and tile making clays of the neighbourhood, 

 with a clunch, and one, or sometimes two, thin seams of coal above. 

 The order in which these coals disappear, as we gather from practical 

 men connected with the district, is this : — At the foundry, midway 

 between Broseley Town Hall and the church, what is known on this 

 side the river as top coal terminates, w^hilst the bottom coal extends 

 thirty yards further, and then terminates too. The Pennystone then 

 runs two hundred yards beyond, and terminates at the Foresters' 

 Arms, on the road to Ironbridge ; the Vigor coal five yards further 

 on, and the Ganey coal a hundred yards beyond the latter. The Clod 

 coal extends thirty yards further than the Best, the next in succession, 

 and the Little Flint coal sixty yards further still. This would repre- 

 sent about a hundred anl fifty-two feet of vertical, and 1575 feet of 

 lineal strata, giving a slope of one in a little over ten, as the old 



