Yol. 55.] COA'GLOMEEATES OP THE LOAVEE SETEEN BASIN". 127 



period subaerial denudation cut tlirougli the Woolhope Limestone 

 and Llandovery sandstones deep down into the Archaean Series. 



If the ridges ranging along the east and south of the regions 

 herein described afforded this material, the special association of 

 pebbles and breccia could be explained ; for the sequence of the 

 rock-materials, with the doubtful exception of the Carboniferous 

 Limestone, is that which would be afforded by these ridges as 

 shown by the Nuneaton, Lickey, and Abberley successions. The 

 occasional intermixture of fragments older than the Woolhope 

 (especially close to the Lickey) would be accounted for easily if, while 

 the ridges as a whole were arranged in a line from north-east to 

 south-west, each individual member had its greatest length from 

 south-east to north-west, and if some of them were locally denuded 

 during an earlier period down to a lower plane than the Woolhope.^ 



I hold that the Middle and Upper Permian materials have been 

 derived from the ' Mercian Highlands,' now more or less buried under 

 the Trias of the Midlands, south and east of the regions described. 



This special line of research was originally suggested to me by 

 Prof. Lapworth, and I thank him for continued encouragement and 

 assistance. 



EXPLAjN^ATION of plates XI & XII. 

 Plate XI. 



Map of the Tipper and Middle Permian of the South-east Shropshire Eegion, 

 on the scale of 1 mile to the inch. 



Plate XII. 



Map of the Permian Areas in the Lower Severn Basin, on the scale of 4 miles 

 to the inch. 



Discussion. 



The Peesident, in congratulating the Author, read the following 

 extract from Geikie's ' Memoir of Sir A. C. Eamsay,' p. 228, which 

 had been pointed out to him by Mr. Teall and seemed to have con- 

 siderable bearing on the paper. It refers to remarks made by 

 De la Beche in 1855 on Ramsay's Permian Glacier: — 'As to 

 the scratching of breccia-fragments, — 'tis their nature to — a 

 tumble- down house will give plenty of them ; and then as to old 

 localities for the fragments, independently of not having cakes 

 which have beeu eaten, who the d'ckens, in such places, can say 

 what rocks are beneath the sprawl of I^ew Reds?' 



Prof. SoLLAS recalled the interest with which in earlier days 

 geologists listened to Ramsay's eloquent expositions on a Permian 

 ice-age, and, without committing himself to any opinion, pointed 

 out the line of argument which a supporter of Ramsay's views 



^ See paper on the Halesowen Upper Coal Measure conglomerates, claimed 

 to be derived from ridges at the Lickey, then eroded down to the Archaean, 

 in Birm. Nat. Hist. & Phil. Soc, Journ. vol. ii, p. 118. 



