1855.] RAMSAY — PERMIAN BRECCIA. 20.5 



midland part of the Permian strata, the Crag and Pleistocene beds 

 are, as masses, sufficiently meagre. 



There is one point of resemblance between these Permian breccias 

 with their associated strata and the Pleistocene drift deposits worthy 

 of note. In the latter fossils are much scattered, and in most of the 

 beds of rare occurrence. They are still more scarce in that part of 

 the Permian series with which the breccias are associated. I have 

 thought, that, in like manner, this paucity of life may be connected 

 in these latitudes with the glacial phsenomena of the Permian and the 

 Bunter periods, and I no sooner mentioned this to Professor E. Forbes 

 than he suggested that it might also be connected with the great 

 break in life that has taken place between Palaeozoic and Secondary 

 times. In connexion with this, in so far as it affects the Bunter 

 rocks, I may state that near Wribbenhall in part of the pebble-beds 

 (of Bunter date) there are breccias strikingly resembling those of 

 Permian strata ; and also near Astley, a little S.W. of Stourport, and 

 probably at Alfrick, at the base of the white sandstones there is a 

 recurrence of the same phsenomenon. It is possible that these may 

 have been reconstructed from the waste of the older Permian brec- 

 cias ; but when I examined them, I felt more disposed to attribute 

 them to direct glacial action, and now incline to connect them with 

 the passage quoted from Mr. Austen's Memoir, in which he attri- 

 butes the transport of large blocks in the New Red Sandstone to 

 glacial agency. 



