150 



of twenty or thirty miles, passing insensibly here, as in Germany, 

 into the red marl. 



A much more imexpected discovery has been made, by the same 

 indefatigable observer, of the same beds in another situation, viz. 

 between the Hawkstone Hills and the towns of Whitchurch and 

 Market Drayton, seventy miles apart from the lias range in the 

 Midland counties. This outline is known to extend about ten miles 

 in length, and from four to six in breadth ; its greatest extent is 

 from north-east to south-west; its western boundary is obscure. 

 The strata have a slight dip inwards towards a common centre. The 

 visit of a geologist to this spot has had the eflFect of stopping an in- 

 considerate speculation ; the bituminous character of the lower beds 

 had been supposed to indicate the proximity of coal, and a shaft 

 had been sunk to the depth of three hundred feet in search of that 

 mineral, in a place which I need hardly say afforded not the slight- 

 est chance of success. 



The escarpment here exposed presents to view the junction of 

 the middle and lower part of the formation. With most of its fos- 

 sils we are familiar, but six or seven of the species met with are 

 new in England, though some of these occur in a corresponding 

 position at Brora in Sutherlandshire, and others are figured in the 

 valuable work which Mr. Zieten is now publishing on the Organic 

 Remains of the Kingdom of Wurtemburg, A shaft sunk at Kents- 

 rough has reached the brine springs and gypsum of the subjacent 

 formation. 



Mr. Williamson, jun., has given us a detailed account of the lias 

 near Scarborough, to which I shall have occasion to advert again. 



Mr. Murchison has described to us the new red sandstone on the 

 confines of England and Wales ; the formation here, as in the north- 

 eastern counties, may be divided into 



1. Red and green marl ; 



2. Sandstone and conglomerate ; 



3. Calcareous and dolomitic conglomerate; 



4. Lower red sandstone : 



corresponding to 1. the Keuper ; 2. Bunt sandstein ; S. Zechstein; 

 4. Rothe todte liegende of the Germans. 



Limestone is sparingly distributed in this district. No trace has 

 been met with of the muschelkalk, and the magnesian limestone oc- 

 curs only in the shape of a sandstone conglomerate. 



1. The red and green marls afford brine-springs in Gloucester- 

 shire, Worcestershire, Shropshire, and Cheshire, but with a small 

 proportion of gypsum. 



2. The beds immediately beneath are largely developed in the 

 north of Shrewsbury, in Staffordshire and Salop j the district which 

 they occupy is wild and barren, owing to the prevalence of decom- 

 posed quartzose conglomerates. Where sand predominates it is 

 more fertile, and the country assumes a character perfectly distinct 

 from that which belongs to the upper and lower beds. 



3. The fragments of the calcareous conglomerate are occasionally 

 of oolitic limestone, sometimes of old red sandstone, or of some mem- 



