196 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [Feb. 21, 



South Staffordshire Coal-field, the Permian section is, in general 

 terms, the same as that of the Enville country ; like it, including two 

 highly calcareous bands. Around the South Staffordshire Coal-field, 

 north of Northfield on the east, and Kingswinford on the west, the 

 Permian strata exposed seem all to form portions of the series that 

 lie below the Breccia. 



Between Enville and Bewdley, the identity of the breccias is 

 •sufficiently apparent, two large strips being merely separated at the 

 surface by means of a north and south fault. Between Bewdley and 

 the south end of the Malvern Hills, they occur at six distinct inter- 

 vals, resting on Coal-measures, Silurian rocks, and Old Red Sand- 

 stone ; and in none of these places do we find the marls and sand- 

 stones that elsewhere rest upon and underlie them. The same may 

 be said of the Church Hill outlier. This would seem to indicate that 

 the breccias in places overlap the Lower Permian strata ; and this 

 may be easily accounted for, if we suppose that a tract of country of 

 irregular outline was gradually depressed during the accumulation of 

 the series, so that the original margins of the lower strata were by 

 degrees overlapped, and the breccias deposited on still sinking land. 

 There is, in truth, no good reason why these detached masses should 

 be supposed of different dates ; for structure and mode of occurrence 

 alike point to their identity. If then the Staffordshire, Enville, 

 Abberley, and Malvern breccias be all of one origin and date, either 

 cropping out directly from underneath the Bunter Sandstone (except 

 where faulted), or being associated with beds that do so, there is 

 reason to believe that, along with the rest of the Permian strata, 

 they may to a great extent underlie the greater part of the Bunter 

 series between Malvern, Enville, and South Staffordshire ; just as, by 

 parity of reasoning, we conclude that the coal-fields of Staffordshire, 

 Coalbrook Dale, the Forest of Wyre, and the thin strips on the flanks 

 of the Abberley Range, near Martly, are also probably connected 

 deep below the surface. The chances are in favour of this general 

 continuity of Coal-measures ; and, if they are not invariably united, 

 it is probably because parts were removed by denudation before or 

 during the deposition of the overlying formations. The same may 

 be said of the Permian strata of which the Breccia forms a member ; 

 and, if they either are or were continuous at any time between out- 

 crop and outcrop, they cover or covered an included area estimated 

 at about 500 square miles. But at the south end of the Malverns 

 they dip southerly, near Northfield at the south-east end of the South 

 Staffordshire coal-field they dip easterly, and north of Enville they 

 are cut off by a fault ; so that to some extent they must — and for 

 aught we know they may — extend beneath the New Red Sandstone 

 over a much greater area. 



Character of the stones in the Breccia ; and whence derived. — 

 The lithological nature of the imbedded fragments has already been 

 described. Everywhere, in spite of exceptional fragments in the Mal- 

 vern district, they seem to be derived from one set of rocks ; they are 

 all enclosed in the same red marly paste, and they are mostly angular 



