Miss E'i/ton — Newer Deposits of North Shropshire. 107 



Lying upoTi this bed are mounds of drift, assuming tlie rounded 

 contour described by Professor llarkness as "the outline of many 

 of the deposits of ' manure gravel ' in the county of Wexford," and 

 also of Strethill, 



One of these mounds occui's at Merrington Green, about six miles 

 from Shrewsbury, and one mile from tlie base of Pimhill. It con- 

 sists of very coarse unstratifiod gravel, rounded but not striated, 

 containing Silurian and Carboniferous limestone fossils, mixed with a 

 dark-coloured clay and with sand. I do not remember to have ever 

 seen any flints in this bed. It contains abundance of shells in a 

 very fragmentary condition. 



Section 1. From Merrington Green to the river Perry, showing the relative 

 positions of the older and re-assorted drifts, 



a. Blue clay, Old Woods, etc. 



b. Clayey gravel of Merrington Green. 



c. Ke-assorted gravel, Yeaton, etc 



Section 2. Showing the relation of the Werf stream to re-assorted gravels. 



a. Bunter sandstone. 

 6. Channel of the Werf. 

 c. Re-assorted gravels. 

 The above are not drawn to scale, heing merely intended to show the relative 

 positions of the beds. 



The species I have been able to determine are, Tellina solidula, 

 Astarte arctica, Cardium edide, Cardium ecJiinatum and columellas 

 of Fusus antiquus. Cyprina Islandica, and Turritella communis or 

 terebra, both so frequent in the beds near the Wrekin, seem to be 

 entirely absent. On the whole it possesses, I think, sufficiently dis- 

 tinguishing characteristics to mark it as older than the gravels on 

 the east of the plain, and than most of the middle drift deposits 

 described by Professor Harkness. I do not know the altitude of this 

 mound above the sea level, further than that it over-tops the spire of 

 St. Mary's Church, Shrewsbury. A similar gravel may be seen in 

 the ballast hole west of Baschurch station. Towards the north the 

 mounds increase in number, forming in many places ridges, and, as 

 has been previously stated, concealing the underlying clay, while the 

 hollows are occupied by small meres and peat mosses. 



At Leaton, three miles from Shrewsbury, there occurs another of 

 these mounds, not quite so high as that of Merrington Green, and 

 nearer the Severn. The material of this bed, however, differs so 

 much from the preceding, consisting of finely stratified sand and 

 gravel, with an entire absence of shells, that, notwithstanding the 

 contour and the elevation at which it occurs, there seems no choice 

 but to consider it provisionally as an Esker drift. 



