198 



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



in 1852, when I found fragments oi Lepidodendron and Catamites'^ 

 in a quarry near Exhall. Encouraged by this discovery, these rocks 

 were diligently searched for fossils during the completion of the geolo- 

 gical lines by Mr. Howell, and in the same quarry a few casts of a shell 

 were discovered by our collector Mr. Richard Gibbs, which Mr. Salter 

 considers to be of Permian type and more allied to Strophalosia than 

 to any other genus. The silicified trees found near Allesley and Me- 

 riden, and apparently several species of Caulerpites and Breea now 

 in the Warwick Museum f, belong also to the same rocks (formerly 

 supposed Bunter species) ; and, in addition to this, it is interesting 

 to know that the beds near Kenilworth in which the Labyrinthodon 

 Bucklandi was found by Dr. Lloyd ;jl belong to the same series. 

 This reptile, previously considered of Bunter date, must therefore be 

 transferred to the Permian period. Beds of calcareous conglomerate 

 are associated with the strata in which all of these fossils were found, 

 and are similar to those which underlie the breccia near Enville ; and 

 it is not improbable they may be general equivalents ; in which case, 

 trees, reptile, and marine shells are of earlier date than the great 

 deposits of breccia. The Permian marls and sandstone near Enville, 

 that overlie the breccias, are in no respect dissimilar from those that 

 lie beneath ; and the breccias themselves, whenever well exposed, 

 are seen to possess a distinctly stratified structure. Not only do 

 the stones generally lie on their flat sides, but sometimes there are 

 long marly and sandy layers and beds in the midst of the mass. 



Fig. 10. — Stratified Permian Breccia. 



'V.tUo 



Glacial origin of the Breccia. — They were therefore deposited in 

 water with considerable regularity, and, as we have seen, over a large 

 area. It is altogether unlikely that the stones were poured into the 

 sea by rivers in the manner in which some conglomerates are formed 

 on steep coasts, where mountain-ridges nearly approach the shore, 

 1st, because the fragments, being derived almost exclusively from 

 the Longmynd country, if the sea then washed its old shores, no 



* Prof. E. Forbes considered it to be Catamites Mougeotii? Mr. Salter thinks 

 it Calamites Suckovii, a Carboniferous species. 



t Caulerpites oblonga, C. triangularis, C. biangularis, Breea entassoides. No 

 precise locality is given for these specimens. 



+ Transactions of the British Association, 1849, Sections, p. 56. 



