340 R. I MuRCHisoNj Esq. and H. E. Strickland, Esq., on the 



Ombersley and Bell Broughton. At Ombersley, and the adjoining hamlet of 

 Hadley (Plate XXVII., fig. 5.), these beds have been much quarried ; and they 

 afford a very beautiful lightish-coloured, fine-grained, slightly micaceous, quart- 

 zose sandstone, sometimes tinged with slight shades of pink and green ; but a 

 delicate olive colour prevails. At Hadley, the quarries expose from 30 to 40 feet 

 of sandstone, covered by red marl. The sandstone is of greenish white colours, 

 tinged, in parts, with purplish and reddish hues, and it is somewhat micaceous; 

 the upper portion, or that nearest the marls, being a breccia of marl and sand- 

 stone. About 8 to 10 feet below the surface, carbonaceous laminae are very 

 abundant ; and on flaking off the beds, their surfaces are found to be covered 

 by numerous impressions of plants, nearly the whole of which have passed 

 into a black powdery charcoal, which readily disintegrates on extraction. 

 Hence, it is very difficult to preserve these fossils with all the freshness of form, 

 which they exhibit when first disinterred ; and when the jet-black colour 

 forms a striking contrast to the light buff-coloured matrix. When the black, 

 incoherent matter has fallen out, the impression of the matrix is usually marked 

 by ferruginous colours. The large slabs, which we procured for the Society 

 from this locality, have been examined by Professor Lindley, who thus ex- 

 presses himself concerning their vegetable contents : — 



" The only plant among the specimens, that has been published, is the Echinostachys, of which 

 slight traces are visible (Plate XXVIII., fig. 11.), I presume they all belong to the same species ; 

 but at all events, one of them is identical with that published by Adolphe Brongniart, from the 

 Gres bigarre{E. ohlongus). The remainder of the impressions consist of many narrow, monocoty- 

 ledonous leaves, resembling those of grasses, a portion of a Jlabelliform palm-leaf, some large 

 moulds of stems of a doubtful character, a longitudinal section of a portion of a dicotyledonous 

 stem with the bark on, a considerable portion of a broad leaf of some monocotyledon, and a great 

 multitude of fragments wholly indeterminable. I can detect no trace of a Voltzia, unless a very 

 imperfect stain upon one of the smaller slabs should be of that nature ; the genera ^thophyllum 

 and Paleoxyris are equally absent ; Convallarites may be present in the form of some of the broken 

 leaves, but it cannot be identified." 



Owing to a Hue of dislocation, which runs along the Doverdale valley, the 

 sandstone of Hadley is thrown to the west, and is partly covered by marl; but 

 farther west, it rises with a gentle easterly dip ; and in that position forms the 

 low ridge, at the southern end of which is the village of Ombersley*. By pur- 

 suing a transverse section from this little ridge to the Severn, we pass through 

 an unbroken, descending series of sandstones, in the following order. (See 

 Plate XXVII., Section, fig. 5.) 



* The quarries from which the pretty church of Ombersley was built, are about half a mile 

 south of the village, but they are now abandoned. This is the point at which the rock first emerges 

 from beneath the marl ; and hence it is overlaid by much rubbish. 



