1855.] RAMSAY — PERMIAN BRECCIA. 197 



or subangular. A well-rounded waterworn pebble is, in places, of 

 rare occurrence. The surfaces of a great majority of the pebbles 

 are much flattened, numbers are highly polished, and, when searched 

 for, many of them are observed to be distinctly grooved and finely 

 striated. The striae in some are clear and sharp, and run parallel to 

 or cross each other at various angles; while in others, though you 

 see their remains, age and surface-decomposition have impaired their 

 sharpness and roughened the original polish of the stone. 



I have stated that (if lithological character be any guide) the 

 fragments (with rare exceptional pieces) seem to have been derived 

 from the conglomerates and green, grey, and purple Cambrian grits 

 of the Longmynd, and from the Silurian quartz-rocks, slates, fel- 

 stones, felspathic ashes, greenstones, and Upper Caradoc rocks of 

 the country between the Longmynd and Chirbury * . The south end 

 of the Malvern Hills is from forty to fifty miles, the Abberleys from 

 twenty-five to thirty-five miles, Enville from twenty to thirty miles, 

 and South Staffordshire from thirty-five to forty-five miles distant 

 from that country. The question then arises, by what process were 

 so many angular and subangular fragments transported so far ; many 

 of them being a foot, and some two, three, or even four feet in dia- 

 meter ; the whole in places forming a deposit of several hundred 

 feet in thickness ? Why also are they angular, and not well-rounded, 

 like the pebbles of the great conglomerate-beds of the Bunter Sand- 

 stone ; and why have they flattened sides, and often polished and 

 striated surfaces ? 



Fossils of the Permian : and Stratijication of the Breccia. — There 

 seems no special reason to doubt that the Permian beds of the mid- 

 land counties are of marine origin, like the magnesian limestone series 

 of Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire, and the North of England ; although, 

 except the remains of the tree near Enville, no native fossils have yet 

 been discovered in them, either on the borders of Wales or on the 

 east side of Coalbrook Dale, in Staffordshire, or on the flanks of the 

 Malvern Hills. There are, however, identical deposits lying between 

 Leamington and the neighbourhood of Tamworth, in which a few 

 fossils were found. In this district these beds have heretofore been 

 described as belonging to the Bunter Sandstone f, appearing as they 

 d(/not far below the true New Red or Keuper marl. The error arose 

 from the absence of the pebble-beds and the lower and upper brick- 

 red sandstones of the Bunter Series (fig. 1, p. 188); and thus it 

 happens that between Leamington and the country a little to the 

 south of Tamworth, the white and brown sandstones, 5, fig. 1, p. 188 

 (that immediately underlie the New Red marl), rest directly on the 

 Permian sandstones and marls, which were thus naturally mistaken 

 for the lower parts of the Bunter strata. Having satisfied myself, 

 on purely stratigraphical and lithological grounds, that these were 

 true Permian strata, the truth of this surmise was further confirmed 



* In part, the Shelve country. 



t Memoir by Sir R. I, Murchison and Mr. Strickland, Transact. Geol. Soc. 

 2nd Sen, vol. v. p. 331. 



