120 MR. E. W, BINNEY ON THE PERMIAN AND 



continues in the bed of the river to Salmesbury Chapel, 

 below which place it appears as a soft red sandstone, much 

 bedded, and without pebbles, and dips W.S.W. at an 

 angle of 9°. It occupies the river-course up to Mr. Swift's 

 house at Salmesbury Lower Hall, where it dips W.S.W. at 8°. 

 It is also seen in a small stream, called Besser Brook, below 

 Mr. Fisher Armitstead's house. After leaving Lower Hall 

 I found pebbles in the stone, but not abundantly, of brown 

 and white quartz, one of an oblong shape, 2 inches in 

 diameter, and small pockets of red marl. On reaching the 

 side of the wood there, Mr. Armitstead showed me a small 

 quarry which he had opened for getting building-stone 

 that he had used in the erection of his farm -buildings. It 

 was soft when first quarried, but became harder on exposure 

 to the atmosphere. In this quarry was a bed of red marl^ 

 6 inches in thickness, used by the farmers for marking 

 their sheep. The red sandstone can be seen in the river, 

 past the turn below Mr. Barton's farm-house, and then for 

 a short distance, less than 100 yards, on the rise of the 

 strata, till and clay are seen until you reach the ferry 

 called Barton's Boat, where occurs a bed of dark blue 

 shale and fine-grained sandstones, dipping to the south at 

 an angle of 29°. These appear to extend up the river, 

 past Alston Hall on towards Bibchester, and no tidings 

 could be had of any more red rock in that direction. The 

 soft red sandstone in the Bibble appeared in every respect 

 like those previously described near Bannister Hall, and 

 seems to belong to the pebble-beds of the Trias ; but I did 

 not see anything like the red and yellow sandstones and 

 conglomerate of Roach Bridge, previously described. The 

 Lower Carboniferous rocks at Barton's Boat, by their dip, 

 appeared to me to be a continuation of the Lower Carboni- 

 ferous strata seen in the Darwen, and previously described ; 

 but the roclcs lying on it appeared to be Trias rather than 

 Permian. From the dip of the strata below Preston and 



