160 PKOCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [Feb. 26, 



western base — the side lying most open to bygone arctic and glacial 

 influences. No boulder-clay nor drifted material of other kind is 

 associated with these blocks upon the hills in this immediate neigh- 

 bourhood. The drift at three localities, viz., Bushbury Junction, Oxley 

 Manor, and Wobaston Big Meadow, had probably a parallelism in 

 time of deposition and agency of formation ; though I cannot satisfy 

 myself whether to regard them as the remains of a low terrace-line 

 skirting the valley, or as the result of undercurrents, relaying the 

 derived material in banks parallel with its strike. In the exposure 

 of this drift at Bushbury Junction, where it is an apparently un- 

 stratifled bed of clay and sand, with an admixture of both rounded 

 pebbles and angular flints, I have met with the following marine 

 shells, which have been kindly determined for me by Mr. J. Gwyn 

 Jeffreys, F.G.S.: — Nassa reticulata, Turritella communis, Purpura 

 lapillus, Littorina squalicla, Astarte arctica, Cardium eclule, Tellina 

 solidula, and Cyprina Islandica. 



Eolled shells and other fossils derived from Liassic rocks accom- 

 pany these, such as GrypJicece, Ammonites, Cardinice, and Belem- 

 nites. I have also met with a fragment of Dowiiton Sandstone 

 (Upper Silurian), bearing a cast of RliynchoneUa, together with 

 pieces of coal, having rounded edges and striae upon their surfaces, 

 and of unfossilized wood similarly rounded. 



At the exposure of this drift at Oxley Manor, half a mile N."W. of 

 Bushbury, its physical character was that of a clay-bed resting ujDon 

 sand. The following shells were met with in the clay, though the 

 condition of all the imbedded remains was more fragmentary than at 

 the first-named place : — Cardium ecliinatum, Tapes virginea, Venus 

 striata, Modiola modiolus, and Turritella communis. In connexion 

 with his determination of these and the before-mentioned species 

 from Bushbury Junction, Mr. Jeffreys has favoured me with the 

 following note : — 



'^ All of these shells are much rolled and broken, and they appear 

 to have been cast up by the tide on a pebbly beach. They indicate 

 also the former presence of a gradually shelving tract of sand below 

 the beach seawards, as well as of an intermediate belt of loose stones 

 or shingle in the littoral zone. It is possible that these shells may 

 have been carried off with the pebbles from a beach in the Arctic 

 regions by an iceberg, which, after traversing a considerable distance 

 in a glacial sea, may have stranded or melted, and deposited its load in 

 the spot where the shells and pebbles have now been foimd. The pre- 

 sent data are, however, insufiicient to enable me to form any opinion 

 on this point. All the species now inhabit the Arctic Sea. Two of 

 them, Astarte arctica and Littorina squalida, are not found living in 

 our seas ; but all the rest arc common British species. The period 

 of this deposit in Staffordshire, whether original or derivative, may 

 have been coeval with that of the Kelsey Hill formation, which has 

 been lately described by Mr. Prestwich in the ' Quarterly Journal of 

 the Geological Society*.' Eight species enumerated in his paper also 

 occur in the deposit under notice, which in its tiirn possesses four 

 * Vol. xvii. p. 446. 



