Murchisorfs Silurian System. 43 



all those situated midway between Bridgenorth and Wolverhampton, 

 and occupying points intermediate between the coal-fields of Staffordshire 

 and Coal-Brook Dale, belong rather to the overlying or great central 

 mass of sandstone. At Lilleshall, the same instructive section as that 

 from Nedge Hill to Shifnal is repeated, with still greater clearness and 

 fuller development. In the slopes of the hills below the terrace on 

 which Lilleshall House is built, are stiff, argillaceous beds, which pro- 

 duce a cold and unmanagable soil. Other sandy beds, on the contrary, 

 are quite incoherent and very largely micaceous, a rare feature in 

 the supracarbonaceous strata. At Lilleshall Abbey, the lowest strata 

 apparent on the surface are thick-bedded, light brownish sandstones. 



" The junction of these with the underlying coal has never yet been 

 ascertained, but there can exist no doubt of these being the true beds 

 of passage into the carboniferous system. Portions of this sandstone 

 are seen at one or two points along the northern flank of the Ketley 

 portion of this coal-field, and they follow the outline of the promontories 

 of the trap and silurian rocks near Wellington, but are for the most part 

 in an incoherent and decomposed state, and the district is also much 

 obscured by gravel. The Lower Red Sandstone reappears at Woxeter, 

 Preston-Boats,* Shrewsbury, and other places on the banks of the Severn. 



It dips away in slightly inclined masses from various small patches 

 of coal at Pitchford and Uffmgton; also near Longnor, where the coal- 

 bearing strata of Le Botwood pass gently beneath the red strata of 

 Condover and Stapleton. In that district these red sandstones enter 

 deeply into the recesses of the bays, or denudations which have been 

 formed at the north-eastern extremities of the Cambrian rocks, in many 

 situations resting directly upon their vertical or highly inclined strata ; 

 while in others, as in various hollows near Cound and Pitchford, they 

 are separated from the old rocks by thin patches and broken zones of 

 coal. In all such positions, even at the north-western end of the Lowley 



* At Preston-Boats, the upper part of the old quarries exposes thin bedded, 

 hard, slightly calcareous beds, with small concretions of dark green impure lime- 

 stone, closely resembling certain cornstones of the Old Red Sandstone. In the 

 lower part of the quarry the beds become thicker, and consist of sandstones of deep 

 red colour, with a few blotches of marl. It is from beds of this age, that the Abbey 

 Castle, and many ancient buildings of Shrewsbury have been constructed. Though 

 I have looked in vain for any trace of organic remains in these calcareous beds, we 

 should never despair of such a discovery, when we recollect for how long a period 

 the existence of organic remains was unknown in beds of similar structure in the 

 Old Red Sandstone. 



