1855.] RAMSAY PERMIAN BRECCIA. 195 



Abberley and Malvern range, and from thence, with slight breaks, 

 passes further south to the shores of the Severn*. At the south 

 end of the Malvern Hills, between Bromsberrow and Howlers Heath, 

 a strip of Permian breccia occurs, about a mile and a half in length, 

 lying unconformably across the strike of the Upper and Lower 

 Silurian rocks. A part of the same band, thrown further south by 

 a fault, stretches for about three-quarters of a mile between Little 

 London and Vineyard. It rests unconformably on the Upper Silu- 

 rian rocks and the Old Red Sandstone, and both the strips are cut 

 off at each end by faults, which throw the upper brick -red beds 

 (No. 4 in fig. 1) of the Bunter Sandstone against them. They are 

 each about an eighth of a mile in width, dipping southerly under 

 the upper brick-red or variegated sandstone, at angles of about 25°. 



Fig. 9. — Section of the Bunter and Permian beds south of 

 Howlers Heath. 



S. Howlers Heath. N. 



1 



4. White and brown sandstone, with bands of marl (Bunter). 3. Upper brick- 

 red sandstone (Bunter). 2. Permian breccia. 1. Silurian rocks. 



Above No. 4 comes the New Red marls. Among numerous sub- 

 angular fragments of the breccia were found pieces of quartz, quartz- 

 rock, quartzose sandstone, purple grit, reddish conglomerate, green- 

 ish-grey grit, black and blue slate, ribboned slate, Silurian limestone, 

 greenstone, felstone, felstone-porphyry, and granite like that of the 

 Malvern Hills. Some of the other fragments, such as the black slate 

 and limestone, alike resemble Malvern and Shelve rocks ; but the 

 majority have the character common to the Longmynd rocks, from 

 which they are distant about forty-seven miles. They are generally 

 of no great size, the largest observed rarely exceeding 6 or 8 inches 

 in diameter. 



The Breccias on one horizon ; and extent of the area which they 

 occupy. — I have now described these Breccias as occurring in ten 

 localities, exclusive of small outliers, or mere minor separations of 

 the same mass by local faults. Though occurring at intervals, there 

 can be little doubt that they all belong to one Permian horizon. In 

 the Enville country (fig. 2, p. 188) they are both overlaid and under- 

 laid by marls and sandstones of true Permian type, the lower beds 

 including two bands of calcareous conglomerate. These, as a whole, 

 dip beneath the Upper New Red Sandstone to the east, and again 

 rise from under it in the southern part of South Staffordshire, where, 

 in consequence of unconformity, the higher Permian beds are over- 

 lapped by the Upper New Red Sandstone ; and, the lower brick-red 

 sandstone being absent, the pebble beds rest directly on the Breccias 

 (fig. 3, p. 190). Between the Bromsgrove and Clent Hills and the 



* Lately traced by Mr. Howell. 



p2 



