Vol. 68.] TFE ' PERMIAIS" ' EOCKS OF HAMSTEAD. 653 



1910 at their Smethwick works by the Birmingham Railway 

 Carriage & Wagon Co., who have kindly furnished me with 

 particulars of the strata passed through, and given me permission, 

 to make use of them. 



(3) The ^ Permian^ Succession of Smethwick and 

 Hands worth. 



The Smethwick boring which I have studied lies very slightly 

 north of the section in the railway-cutting of which the details 

 were given by Mr. King, and a few yards west of the out- 

 crop of calcareous conglomerate shown crossing the cutting on 

 the Geological Survey maps. The upper strata (to 204 feet) of 

 this Smethwick boring agree almost exactly with those of the 

 adjoining railway-cutting. Below 204 feet from the surface the 

 Lower (so-called) ' Permian ' is entered. A depth of 650 feet was 

 attained in the boring. At a depth of 620 feet a bed of Spirorbis 

 Limestone, which probably answers to the upper bed of limestone — 

 at 579 feet — in the Hamstead Shaft, was pierced. Above this 

 horizon in the Smethwick boring the strata are chiefly red sand- 

 stones and marls, and in this respect agree almost exactly in their 

 relative thickness and composition, as will be seen in the appended 

 vertical sections (p. 652), where the Carriage-Works section (fig. 5) 

 is paralleled with that of Hamstead Colliery (fig. 4). 



In the upper layers the 43 feet of sandstone, from 88| to 

 131| feet, in the Hamstead Shaft are on an horizoD corresponding 

 to that of conglomerate A^ of the Smethwick Carriage- Works 

 boring. It is true that this conglomerate A^ is not present as 

 such in the Hamstead Shaft; but it is doubtless represented by 

 the calcareous sandstone shown in the Hamstead-Shaft section 

 at 88| feet. As will be seen by the comparative sections, the 

 Smethwick boring pierces higher beds than those of the upper- 

 most strata of the Hamstead Colliery-shaft. Thus the second 

 conglomerate of the boring corresponds exactly to the sandstone 

 and conglomerate beds which form the floor of the JN'ew Quarry 

 or, in other words, the Gravel-pit Sandstone Sub-group of the 

 Hamstead area. The uppermost conglomerate of the Smethwick 

 boring is evidently the bed of conglomerate (Pock-Parm Conglo- 

 merate) which is met with 25 feet higher in the face of the same 

 quarry. They are thus respectively equivalent to Mr. Wickham 

 King's stages B^ and C^. 



(4) Summary. 



Prom the comparisons adduced in the foregoing paragraph it is 

 evident that : — 



1. The highest 92 feet of the Hamstead-Quarry Series belong 

 to Mr. Wickham King's Upper Breccia division of the general 

 Permian succession in the districts bordering the South Stafford- 

 shire Coalfield. 



