of the Birmingham and Gloucester Railway. 547 



Description of the Deposits. 



§ 1 . New Red Sandstone. — The geological starting-point on this railway does not 

 coincide with either of its locomotive termini. The lowest rock exposed is on the 

 anticlinal axis of the Lickey, about ten miles S.S.W. of Birmingham. It will be 

 remembered, that in the description given by Mr. Murchison of the Bromsgrove 

 Lickey*, the effects of that trappean eruption are stated to extend many miles 

 towards the S.S.E. in the shape of a long elevated tract called the Ridgeway, form- 

 ing the western watershed of the river Arrow. The transverse sections of this ridge, 

 afforded by the railway as well as by the Birmingham and Worcester canal a mile 

 further south (see Burr, Geol. Proceedings, vol. ii. p. 594), sufficiently prove an 

 anticlinal arrangement of the strata. 



The cutting No. 95. f on the engineering section j crosses the anticlinal ridge 

 of the Lickey, and being excavated to the great depth of fifty-six feet, it was natu- 

 rally expected to exhibit some points of interest. About half a mile to the north 

 of it, trap rock appears in situ^, elevating and altering the Caradoc sandstone or 

 Lickey quartz. Neither of these rocks, however, appear in the railway excava- 

 tion, which exhibits nevertheless clear proofs of the disturbance attending the up- 

 heaval of the Lickey, 



The lowest rock visible in this cutting is a mass of very hard brownish or red- 

 dish sandstone, commencing about fifty yards to the east of the post which marks 

 the railway summit, and extending about seventy yards to the eastward, where it 

 attains the height of twenty feet above the railway, and is suddenly cut off by a 

 nearly vertical fault (see section, PI. XLVIIL figs. 1, 2.). Some of the beds of 

 this sandstone are of a grey colour and uniform compact texture, with specks of 

 white decomposed felspar ; others are coarser-grained and of a brown or reddish 

 tint, containing rolled fragments of ferruginous or dark red indurated marl. No 

 organic remains were noticed in it, and it hence becomes difficult to fix the 

 precise age of this rock. I at first considered it to be a portion of the Caradoc 

 sandstone of the Lickey, but from a closer inspection of its mineral characters 

 I should prefer classing it in the " Lower New Red Sandstone " of Mr. Mur- 

 chison. 



The strata of this rock dip at the high angle of about 60° to E.S.E., or from the 

 great mass of trap composing the Upper Lickey (see Mr. Murchison's map). 



The rock above described is overlaid unconformably by a vast mass of conglome- 

 rate belonging to the " Upper New Red " or hunter sandstein. The latter deposit 



* Silurian System, p. 569. t See sheet 24 of the lithographed sections, 



t The account of this cutting was read June 16th, ISil. § See Silurian System, p. 495. 



