Upper Formations of the New Red Sandstone Si/stem. 333 



The sandstone beds thin out; and their surface often presents ripple 

 marks. The marls in the bed No. 3 were much cracked at the time of 

 their deposition, for the crevices are filled with whitish sandstone, in the same 

 manner as septaria are occupied by calcareous spar. Sometimes the marl is 

 more broken up, and detached angular fragments are imbedded in the sand- 

 stone. The general relations of the Burge-hill sandstone to the surround- 

 ing formations is shown in Section, PI. XXVII., fig. 1. 



This sandstone rock, as before stated, is also exposed distinctly at Ripple, 

 three miles north of Tewkesbury. To the north of Ripple it appears gradually 

 to thin out; and in a section at Old House Farm, south of Spetchley, near 

 Worcester, it is represented by only about twelve feet of grey shivery marls 

 with thin courses of sandstone, the whole reposing on red marl. It is also seen 

 half a mile east of Spetchley at the junction of the Alcesterand Evesham roads. 

 It is not discernible further north, being lost or obscured amidst the great mass 

 of red marl in which it is enclosed. We, therefore, proceed to describe the cha- 

 racters of the rock at Inkberrow, about twelve miles east and by north of 

 Worcester, in which neighbourhood it has long been quarried, and is so 

 clearly exposed, that it appears to us to afford the best lithological type of the 

 subdivision in Worcestershire. 



The sandstone of Inkberrow occupies a prominent part of a distinct ridge 

 about three miles in length, and varying in height from 210 to 320 feet 

 (above the sea), and it extends from the quarry pits, north-west of Radford, in 

 a low hummock, one mile west of Inkberrow by Penhills to Morton Hill, as a 

 culminating point, whence the ground lowers to Feckenham on the north. 

 The same stone re-appears, at intervals, in an attenuated form to the north of 

 Feckenham, ranging by Lower Berrow, and wrapping round a bay of lias, 

 from beneath which, it rises at W^allhouse Farm, at an angle of 20° to 25°. (See 

 Section, fig. 2.)* Near Inkberrow the sandstone is quarried at three chief 

 localities, viz. the Quarry Pits, Stone-Pits, and Mucklow's Grave. It is also 

 clearly exposed on the sides of any of the lands, descending from the ridge of 

 red ground on the east to the vale of lias on the westf . The following section 

 exhibits the whole of the strata here exposed. (See PI. XXVII., Section, fig. 3.) 



1. Red and green marls occupying the crown of the ridge, estimated thickness 100 to 120 Feet. 



* Owing to the undulations of the red marl in which it is contained, the same rock is again 

 brought out at Love Lane, about two miles to the east. 



■f" This plain of lias, bounded on the east by hills of red marl, indicates a line of fault which is 

 traceable from Bredon Hill on the south towards Bromsgrove Lickey, and has been described by 

 Mr. Strickland, Geol. Proc. vol. ii. p. 5, and Analyst, vol. ii. p. 1. 



2x2 



