650 ME. W. H. HAEDAKEE OX A FOSSIL-BEAEING HOEIZON [DeC. I9I2, 



Company. The shaft itself is 1900 feet deep. The rocks of the 

 lower portion, from 1900 to 1024 feet, are, as all investigators 

 agree, of Carboniferous age, and contain the well-known Thick 

 Coal and other seams of the South Staffordshire Coalfield. From 

 1024 feet up to the surface the beds consist chiefl}- of red sand- 

 stones and marls, and have been generall}' assigned to the Permian 

 Sj'stem. By some, however, they have been claimed as Upper Coal 

 Measures, and the matter must still be regarded as unsettled. 



That most of the higher beds of the Hamstead Colliery-shaft 

 belong to the so-called * Permian ' rock-succession of the district, 

 coloured as such in the first edition of the maps and sections of 

 H.M. Geological Survey, has long been acknowledged ; and the 

 acknowledgment may be presumed to carry with it the general 

 admission that the officers of the Survey are correct in colouring 

 the outcrops of the Hamstead Quarry beds as belonging to the 

 same succession. But it is most desirable that an attempt should in 

 this place be made to fix, if possible, the exact place of both the 

 Hamstead-Colliery Series and the Hamstead-Quarry Series in the 

 ascending order of the divisions already recognized in the so-called 

 ' Permian ' rocks of South Staffordshire. Our present interest is 

 mainly with the Quarry Series and their fossils ; but, in order to fix 

 the exact position of the Quarry Series in the Permian succession 

 of the Midlands, it is desirable to make some observations on the 

 Permian succession of the borders of the South Staffordshire 

 Coalfield in general, and on the upper divisions of that succession 

 in particular. 



(2) The Clent and Enville ^ Permian ' Snccession^ and its 

 three Divisions. 



The typical so-called 'Permian ' rocks of the borders of the South 

 Staffordshire Coalfield may perhaps be said to be the red strata of 

 the Clent district, which commence almost immediately above a 

 band of Spirorhis Limestone there met with in the highest layers 

 of the Halesowen Sandstone Group (Carboniferous). According to 

 Mr. AY. Wickham Xing, the Permian rocks are there divisible into 

 three groups, namely : — 



(c) Upper Division inchiding breccias interbedded with red sandstones 

 and marls. Localities i : Walton Hill, etc. 



{h) Middle Division, including calcareous cornstone bands and sand- 

 stones, interbedded with marls and soft sandstones. Localities i: 

 St. Kenelms, etc. 



(a) Lower Division of red sandstones and marls. Localities i : 

 Hunnington, etc. 



He attempted no subdivision of his Lower Permian in the paper 

 already cited, but he carefully subdivided his Middle and Upper 

 divisions of the South Staffordshire ' Permian ' as follows ^ : — 



1 Tj-pical'localities, the names of wl ich were supplied to me by Prof. 

 Lap worth. 



2 Q. J. G. S. vol. Iv (1899) p. 108, table i. 



