1855.] RAMSAY — PERMIAN BRECCIA. 189 



gently searched, no fossils have been discovered in these beds except 

 the impression and part of the bark of the stem of a tree, about two 

 yards long and a foot in diameter, which relics were found last 

 summer by Mr. Hull and myself in the higher calcareous conglome- 

 rate (marked x ' in fig. 2) near Four Ashes. The pebbles of these 

 conglomerates are mostly well-waterworn, but some of them are sub- 

 angular ; they chiefly consist of numerous fragments of carboniferous 

 limestone, mixed with pieces of chert, sandstone, quartz, quartz-rock, 

 Silurian limestone of doubtful date, greenstone, felspathic trap, banded 

 felspathic ash, red granite, red sandy marl, red sandstone, black 

 slate, red jasper, and hornstone. These were collected at Gatacre 

 Hall and the Four Ashes. The carboniferous limestone pebbles by 

 far predominate ; and few of the fragments of any kind exceed 3 or 

 4 inches in diameter. The nearest carboniferous limestone is that of 

 the Titterstone Clee Hills, about twelve miles distant on the south- 

 west. The Coalbrook Dale limestone contains chert, and is about 

 fifteen miles ofi" on the north-east ; and in the same district occur 

 igneous and quartz rocks not dissimilar to those found in the con- 

 glomerates. Some of the other pebbles may have come from the 

 Welsh Border, near the Longmynd ; but all of them may have been 

 drifted by ordinary marine action. 



The true Breccia is separated from the calcareous conglomerate by 

 about 100 feet of brown calcareous sandstone and marl. The brec- 

 ciated stones are imbedded in a deep-red hardened marly paste. 

 They are mostly angular or subangular, with flattened sides and but 

 slightly rounded edges. The pieces collected consist chiefly of frag- 

 ments of micaceous schist, micaceous sandstone, quartz-rock, grey 

 sandstone, chert, purple grit, green sandy slate (one of them polished 

 and scratched), black sla'te, altered slate, greenstone, felstone, fel- 

 spathic ash, and reddish syenite. The last is doubtful. A nodule 

 of ironstone was also observed, and a few quartz-pebbles. None of 

 them are larger than 6 or 8 inches in diameter. There are no rocks 

 answering to the majority of these in the immediate neighbourhood ; 

 and with the exception of the chert, syenite, and ironstone-nodule, 

 the rest lithologically resemble the Cambrian sandstones and slates 

 of the Longmynd, and the Lower Silurian slates, quartz-rocks, and 

 igneous rocks at and east of the Stiper Stones. The distance from 

 the Enville Breccia to these parts of Shropshire and Montgomery- 

 shire is from twenty to thirty miles in a straight line ; and, if the 

 inference be correct that any of the stones are derived from that 

 district, they must have travelled at least that distance. 



The South Staffordshire coal-field would be surrounded by Per- 

 mian rocks, were it not that north of Cannock the pebble-beds (No. 3 

 of the Bunter Section, fig. 1, p. 188) overlap and rest directly on the 

 coal-measures. On the east, between Beaudesert and Watling Street, 

 the pebble-beds (3), white beds (5), and marl (6) are faulted against 

 the coal-measures. In other places the Permian rocks abut against 

 or rest on the carboniferous strata, except at Kingswinford and Old- 

 swinford, where for a short space they are cut out by an increase of 

 the boundary fault. The most complete section of the Permian beds 



