Yol. 6S,'] PALEONTOLOGY OF THE WARWICKSHIRE COALFIELD. 591 



In Warwickshire tlie Carboniferous Limestone and the Millstone 

 Grit are both completely absent, the lowest existing member of 

 the Carboniferous formation being the Productive Coal Measures, 

 which in the north of the coalfield do not exceed 700 feet in 

 thickness and rapidly thin towards the south. On the other hand, 

 there appears to be an exceptional development, both in thickness 

 and in extent, of the so-called ' Permian ' rocks as defined in the 

 Geological Survey Memoir on the coalfield. In recent years, how- 

 ever, the work of Dr. li. Kidston (88-90), (05), Mr. T. C. Cantrill 

 (95), and Dr. Walcot Gibson (01) has demonstrated that much of 

 the Salopian Permian of the Midland counties of England was de- 

 posited in conformable sequence with the underlying Coal Measures, 

 and not, as in the case of the Permian of the North of England, 

 on the eroded edges of the Carboniferous strata. Thus great 

 uncertainty prevails as to how much of the Salopian Permian is 

 to be relegated to the Trias on the one hand, or to the Carboni- 

 ferous on the other. It is one of the chief objects of this paper to 

 determine the true age of the so-called 'Permian' rocks of Warwick- 

 shire, and to discover their stratigraphical relationship to the 

 underlying Carboniferous rocks and to the overlying deposits of 

 Triassic age. Further, I attempt on geological evidence to sub- 

 divide the Carboniferous rocks into groups, and from a study of the 

 fossil flora to determine the age of the subdivisions. 



The so-called ' Permian ' formation of Warwickshire was estab- 

 lished by Sir Andrew Ramsay (55), to include the lower portion 

 of the ' New Red Sandstone ' of previous observers. The chief 

 evidence in favour of the Permian age of these rocks was their 

 close resemblance in lithological characters to the Permian rocks 

 which almost surround the South Staffordshire Coalfield, and like 

 the latter they were proved directly to overlie the Productive Coal 

 Measures. The presence of a supposed outlier of Permian between 

 Polesworth and Glascote was regarded as a proof that these rocks 

 were unconformable to the Coal Measures. Finally, the discovery 

 near Exhall of fragments of a Lepidodendron and a Calamite, and 

 the casts of a shell supposed to be allied to Strophcdosia , was 

 considered additional proof of the Permian age of these beds. 



In the light of recent research this evidence appears to be 

 anything but convincing. There can be little doubt as to the 

 similarity between the Warwickshire ' Permian ' and the ' Permian ' 

 of South Staffordshire ; but it may be contended that at least the 

 lower portion of these South Stafibrdshire rocks is now considered 

 by Mr. T. C. Cantrill (95) and Dr. W. Gibson (01) to be of 

 Carboniferous age, and to be the equivalent of the Keele Beds of 

 North Staffordshire. 



The supposed outlier of Permian is merely an ordinary Coal- 

 Measure sandstone. With regard to the fossils mentioned above, 

 as it is impossible to give specific names to such fragmentary and 

 dubious specimens, the evidence adduced from them must be dis- 

 missed as inconclusive. There remains the question of the boundary 

 between the Permian and the Carboniferous. As delineated on the 



