260 PEOCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [Mar. 22, 



at this quarry. He says that the passage of the Upper Ludlow 

 rock, with its " bone-bed," may be observed here into the yellow 

 Downton beds, succeeded by red marls, precisely similar to those in the 

 Ledbury Tunnel. On my first visit to this spot they were not 

 exposed, and were not visible at a later one ; and the pit has not 

 been worked now for many years. I cannot, therefore, say decisively 

 whether the " olive shales" are present there in situ or not. The 

 " bone-bed" here and at Gamage Ford probably belongs to the 

 lower " bone-bed" which, in Shropshire, is present in the higher 

 portion of the Upper Ludlow, not far below the thicker mass of the 

 Downton sandstone; while another and upper one occurs about the 

 middle of the " olive shales," but it is apparently wanting here. I 

 searched in vain for these " passage-beds " more to the south, near 

 Seller's Hope, where they might be expected to come in, unless a 

 sandy marl, of which a section may be seen in places along the 

 brook which traverses the lower ground, belongs to them. It con- 

 tains a small Orthis and Beyrichia, but it most likely belongs to the 

 Ludlow formation. They may or may not be continuous round the 

 whole of the outer limit of the Silurians in the district under review, 

 and I think it probable that here and there they might be de- 

 tected in road-side cuttings throughout the whole of this area ; I 

 hope, at some future time, to be able to investigate this more 

 closely. At any rate, a more considerable extension has been 

 shown, especially to the east of "Woolhope ; and the presence of the 

 " olive shales," exactly identical lithologically and, to a certain 

 extent, zoologically with the "olive shales" near Ludlow and other 

 places in that neighbourhood,, is distinctly proved. On the west, 

 north-west of Woolhope, and south towards Fownhope, there is less 

 chance of observing those " passage-rocks," if they occur there, be- 

 cause there is a very considerable quantity of drift, which would 

 overlie and conceal them. This larger mass of drift, derived mainly 

 from the denudation of the Silurians adjacent, was first noticed by 

 my friend the Eev, F, Merewether, Vicar of "Woolhope, who, in a 

 short paper read to the Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club, in Octo- 

 ber 1870, has shown a thicker and wider extension of drift in this 

 direction, which had not been before noticed. In many spots 

 these " olive shales " are not exposed, though they may be present 

 i7i situ ; but, from their soft and friable nature, a considerable quan- 

 tity has no doubt been denuded, unless protected by the overlying 

 sandstones. As they pass downwards into a more sandy stone, it is 

 probable that there is some sandstone below ; to what extent or 

 thickness, it is impossible to ascertain ; but it cannot be very thick in 

 the only two places where I have observed them, as at Perton they rest 

 almost immediately on the Upper Ludlow, and at Hillfoot, though 

 not directly overlying it, at least not shown in the section there, 

 the Ludlow shales crop out not far from them. The subordinate 

 sandstone would then seem to be of far less thickness than the 

 more massive sandstone at Downton, Shobden, and elsewhere. 

 The " olive shales" are, no doubt, the equivalents in time of the 



