1855.] RAMSAY — PERMIAN BRECCIA. 187 



But when, in connexion with my duties on the Geological Survey, I 

 began in 1854 to inspect these rocks near Enville, and afterwards 

 revisited the equivalent strata in South Staffordshire, and on the 

 Abberley and Malvern Hills, their true nature gradually dawned 

 on me, and on the 18th of July I wrote to our late deeply lamented 

 President, announcing what (if true) I considered a discovery of con- 

 siderable value. Though I was unaware of the circumstance at the 

 time, it appears that two authors had previously hinted at the possible 

 agency of ice in two epochs, — palaeozoic and secondary. In the 

 'History of the Isle of Man' (1848), p. 89, in describing the con- 

 glomerate of the Old Ked Sandstone, Mr. Gumming compares it to " a 

 consolidated ancient boulder-clay formation," and continues, " Was 

 it so, that those strange trilobitic-looking fishes of that sera (the 

 Coccosteus, Pterichthys, and Cephalaspis) had to endure the buffeting 

 of icy waves and to struggle amidst the wreck of ice-floes and the 

 crush of bergs ? These are questions which we may perhaps venture 

 to ask, but which we dare not hope to have solved till we know 

 something more than at present we know of the history of the 

 boulder-clay formation itself." It may be remarked as a curious 

 coincidence, that, when in Worcestershire I arrived at the conclusion 

 that the Permian breccias are also boulder-clays, my thoughts at 

 once reverted to the more ancient Old Red conglomerates of Scotland, 

 and I stated at the time to my colleague Mr. Howell that they might 

 afterwards turn out to have had a similar origin. 



In a paper published in the Quarterly Journal of the Geological 

 Society, February 1 850, pp. 96 and 97, Mr. R. Godwin- Austen observes 

 that " the great blocks of porphyry of the middle beds of the New 

 Red series in the West of England, included in sands and marls in- 

 dicating no great moving power, seem to require some such agent as 

 that of floating ice to account for their position." In the following 

 observations I hope to carry this subject considerably further, and to 

 show, not only that there were icebergs of Permian date, but also 

 partly to indicate the district whence the glaciers descended that gave 

 these icebergs birth. 



Geological Description of the principal localities of the Breccia ; 

 and its comjwsition and character. — The Coal-fields of North and 

 South Staffordshire, Tamworth, Coalbrook Dale, and the Forest of 

 Wyre are partly bordered by Permian rocks which lie unconformably 

 on the Coal-measures, and in most places once covered these fields, 

 but have been partially removed by denudation. Patches of Permian 

 strata also rest very unconformably on the Silurian rocks of the Ab- 

 berley and Malvern Hills. 



The Bunter or New Red Sandstone which forms the base of the 

 Trias, has been divided by the Geological Survey into four subforma- 

 tions*, some of which are occasionally absent. The best and most 

 complete typical sections of these rocks occur on the east side of 

 Coalbrook Dale, or in the country between Bridgenorth and Patting- 

 ham. The section there is shown in fig. 1. p. 188. 



* Fiist "made out and described by Mr. Hull. 



