Notices and Extracts from the Minutes of the Geological Society. 137 



3. — Notice respecting the Quartz-rock of Bromsgrove Lickie. Bj/ Mr. 

 James Yates, F.G.S. [Read June 7th and 21st, 1823.] 



The notice here offered to the consideration of the Society relates to the 

 quartz-rock of Bromsgrove Lickie, described by Professor Buckland in the 

 2d part of the 5th volume of the Geological Transactions. A reference to the 

 accompanying specimens will best explain the facts which I wish to mention. 



No. 1. exhibits the usual appearance of the rock. It is a granular quartz, 

 in which are imbedded rounded grains of quartz and of decomposing white 

 felspar, with particles of black oxide of iron. This rock passes, on the one 

 hand, into a coarse friable sandstone, in which the crystalline structure entirely 

 disappears; and on the other, into a rock composed of minute quartz-crystals. 



Nos. 2, 3, 4. show the gradation into sandstone, in which the particles of 

 sand are held loosely together by ferruginous clay. 



Nos. 5, 6, 7, 8. show the opposite gradation into a rock, also friable, con- 

 taining in small quantity a cement of clay, but consisting almost wholly of 

 minute quartz-crystals, not half a line in length, with brilliant faces and sharp 

 angles, having the form of six-sided prisms terminated at each end by six-sided 

 pyramids, and with the striae on the sides distinctly perceptible by the aid of 

 a microscope. A circumstance still more remarkable in this variety of the 

 rock is, that it contains impressions of shells. 1 observed this appearance in 

 two different places : in both instances it was among the uppermost strata of 

 the formation. No. 5. is from the western side of Rubery Hill, which belongs 

 to the series of hills called by Mr. Buckland ''the Lower Lickie Range." 

 Nos. 6, 7, 8. are from the eastern side near Colmore's Farm, where a shaft 

 has been dug to the depth of 40 or 50 yards in search of coal. Some of the 

 usual beds belonging to the coal strata, such as clunch and peldon, were found 

 in sinking this shaft. At a considerable depth there occurred a stratum of 

 shell-limestone, of which No. 9. is a specimen. On sinking into the quartz- 

 rock, the water rose so rapidly that the work was abandoned. This quartz- 

 rock contains no trace of lime, and I have not seen any remains of the shells, 

 but only the impressions, showing them to have been of the same kind with 

 some of those in the superincumbent limestone. These shells appear to belong- 

 to the genus Anomia. 



Mr. Buckland states, that it has been questioned, whether the quartz-rock 

 before us is a primitive, or a transition rock. The impressions of shells 

 may assist in settling this question, and in ascertaining the relation of the in- 

 teresting rock, in which they occur, to the other English strata. 



VOL. II. — SECOND SERIES. T 



