/ 5 KEV. A. IRVIlSra ON THE EED EOCKS 



Mr. ToPLET agreed with Mr. Woodward in thinkiug that little new 

 light had now been thrown on the subject of the classification of the 

 Red Eocks in the S.W. of England. jSTo doubt the reason for classing 

 the lower beds and contemporaneous porphyrites, &c., as Trias had 

 been that there was a continuous sequence downwards from un- 

 doubted Keuper. Perhaps here, as probably also in the jST.W. of 

 England, the whole set of Red Rocks forms one series, and any sub- 

 division made in them must be artificial, though no doubt convenient. 

 He would be glad if the lower set of beds could be removed from the 

 Trias and classed with the Permian. This seemed a reasonable 

 suggestion ; it would also harmonize the distribution of the igneous 

 rocks with what occurs in Scotland. He could not, however, admit 

 that this was a conclusive proof of their Permian age. The existence 

 of contemporaneous igneous rocks in the lower series had long been 

 known ; so, too, had the occurrence of fragments of Dartmoor granite. 

 He did not believe that much weight should be allowed to litho- 

 logical similarities or differences in correlating these beds with 

 those of other areas. In Staffordshire the ' Pebble-beds ' were well 

 known as forming thick beds of coarse conglomerate ; but near 

 Liverpool these beds were mainly sandstone, and throughout the 

 Mersey Tunnel no pebble, even as large as a pea, had been noticed. 

 At the deep boring for tlie Wolverhampton Waterworks a thick bed 

 of marl had been found in the middle of the Pebble-beds, although 

 no such bed occurred along the outcrop. 



Prof. Boyd Daavkins remarked that in his opinion there was clear 

 evidence of an overlap, and therefore of a break in the section at the 

 point where the strata were covered by the Budleigh Salterton 

 Pebble-beds, and he believed that the break between the older beds 

 and the Triassic strata was at this point. Erom the correspondence 

 between this section and those of Lancashire and Middle England, 

 he had little doubt but that the Lower Red Rocks were Permian, 

 although the fact could not be accepted as proved without palasonto- 

 logical evidence. He did not believe that the Red Rocks presented 

 a complete series without break in any part of the British Isles. 

 In Lancashire and Staffordshire the Permian strata are so marked off 

 from the Trias that in the Survey maps they are defined by faults of 

 great magnitude; while, at least in the neighbourhood of Manchester, 

 they in part represent a junction by overlap. 



The President mentioned that when, some twenty-five years ago, 

 he found the remains of a group of Permian volcanoes in the South- 

 west of Scotland, he consulted his colleague. Sir Andrew C. Ramsay, 

 as to whether the contemporaneous volcanic rocks described by 

 De la Beche in the New Red Sandstone of Devonshire might not be 

 Permian. But at that time no evidence had been given to warrant 

 the separation of the Red Rocks of Devonshire into two series, and he 

 accepted the general opinion, though he would have been glad to 

 place the volcanic relics of the two regions on the same geological 

 horizon. He had since then examined the coast-sections between 

 Torquay and Sidmouth, which had been so well and so often de- 

 scribed. He was quite willing to regard the older portion of the 



