74 , REV. A. IKVIKG ON THE BED ROCKS 



Lower Permian Marls at Enville to 1000 feet at Bridgenorth, and a 

 few feet only at Stockton, six miles farther north. 



There is one more point, and that a lithological one, for which I 

 am indebted to the Eev. W. Yicary, of Exeter. He informed Prof. 

 Hull and myself that the sandstones west of, and therefore stratigra- 

 phically below, the great Pebble-bed are, so far as his observations 

 served, uniformly made up of rounded grains, which marks an impor- 

 tant distinction between them and the sandstones above the Pebble- 

 bed, as described above. He mentions (in a note addressed to me) 

 Exmouth, Topsham, Exminster, Clist St. Mary, and Broad Clist as 

 localities where the grains are all, or nearly all, rounded. The 

 specimen which he sent me from one of these localities agrees re- 

 markably in this respect with two others which I have since received 

 from my friend the Eev. Dr. Robert Dixon, Yicar of Aylesbeare, 

 who, at my request, obtained them from the road-section at Bishop's 

 Clist and from the pit at Sandy (rate. The grains from the latter 

 place are smaller than those from the former, where they are asso- 

 ciated with breccia-beds, but in both cases the grains are remarkably 

 and nearly uniformly round. 



Eor the reasons here given I must request Prof. Hull to allow me 

 to adhere to the view put forward in my previous paper,^ as to the 

 " lower sandstones " being " merely the transitional assortment of 

 materials between the breccias and the marls," and of Permian age, 

 I am inclined, however, on further consideration of the subject, and 

 from recent inspection of sections inland, to qualify the statement 

 on p. 157 of my paper, that the sandstones " form apparently an 

 upward extension of the more uniformly brecciated series," and to 

 regard the sandstones as (in part at least) parallel with the breccias, 

 the two passing horizontally into one another and having the same 

 stratigraphical relation as the Penrith Sandstone has been shown by 

 Mr. J. G. Goodchild to bear to the Brockram ; ^ and as in Central 

 Germany the Ober-Rothliegende Conglomerates (Geinitz) bear to the 

 Lower and Middle Zechstein, the two visibly overlying the Lower 

 Eothliegendes, as, for example, in the hills about the Wartburg. 



It follows that the break between the Permian and Trias of Devon 

 is marked by the absence of the Lower Bunter of the Midlands and 

 the Severn country, as that between the Bunter and Keuper is 

 marked by the absence of Upper Bunter in the JSTottinghamshire 

 area ; thus presenting a parallel case to those which Prof. Hull has 

 described on the southern flank of the Clent Hills,^ at the Logger- 

 heads ; ^ again about Manchester and Stockport, where the Pebble- 

 beds form the base of the Triassic Series ; ^ and in the districts 

 mentioned in Shropshire, Staff'ordshire, and Derbyshire.'' Parallel 

 instances of the failure of the Lower Bunter are also met with in 



1 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xliv. (1888) p. 160. 



^ See my paper ' On the Classification of the European Eocks known as 

 Permian and Trias,' Geol. Mag. for 1882, p. 223. 

 ^ ' Triassic and Permian Kocks,' &c. p. 17, fig. 4. 

 * Ihid. p. 25, fig. 6. 3 Ibid. p. 41. 



6 Ihid. pp. 48, 49, 59. 



