^ol. 51.] IN THE ' PERMIAN ' ROCKS OF WYRE FOREST. 529 



Prof. Hull * estimates the overlap as equivalent to about 1000 feet 

 of strata. The horizontal extent of the overlap appears to be about 

 5 miles. 



Between the base of the Lower Bunter of Enville and Claverley, 

 and the Coal Measures of the Wyre Forest Coalfield, we have a 

 thick series of red sandstones, marls, and cornstones, with several 

 bands of calcareous conglomerate and the remarkable trappoid 

 breccia. The whole has hitherto been regarded as Lower Per- 

 mian, the representative of the Bothliegende of Germany. 2 It has 

 been called by the Survey ' Lower Bed Sandstone or Permian ' 

 [e 1 ] on the maps. 3 



The base was drawn at the plane which separates the red rocks 

 above from the yellow, brown, and olive-coloured coal-bearing 

 sandstones and shales of the ordinary Coal Measures below. Not 

 that there are no occasional red beds among the ordinary Coal 

 Measures, but that there were then not known to be present in 

 these ' Permian ' rocks any of the seams of coal, the Spirorbis- 

 limestones, or the yellowish and grey sandstones, and blue, grey, or 

 dark shales so characteristic of the Coal Measures. 4 



Besides this there are beds of calcareous conglomerate and trap- 

 poid breccia in these ' Permian ' rocks, such as are not known to 

 occur in the underlying Coal Measures ; and, in addition, there is 

 probably a certain small amount of local unconformity between the 

 two series. 



And, so far as the Wyre Forest and Enville district is concerned, 

 the matter has remained till the present much as it was left by the 

 Survey. 



II. The South Staffordshire ' Permian.' 



Before examining the fresh evidence which has lately come to 

 hand in the Wyre Forest district, and which tends to show that 

 these red rocks are much more closely allied to the Coal Measures 

 than has hitherto been suspected, we will examine the progress of 

 opinion as to the relations of similar beds in South Staffordshire. 



In this latter district, Jukes, in his classic memoir, regarded as 

 ' Permian ' the whole of the red beds between the boundary-faults 

 of the coalfield and the overlying Bunter. The same beds, to the 

 south, overlie the olive-brown and yellow Hales Owen Sandstones 

 of the Coal Measures, and rising to form the Wychbury, Clent, and 

 Bomsley Hills, are themselves overlain on the southern flanks of 

 these hills by the Pebble Beds of the Middle Bunter. 6 



1 "Triassic and Permian Bocks of the Midland Counties of England, 

 Mem. Geol. Surv. 1869, p. 32. 



2 Ibid. p. 10. 



3 Sheets 61 N.E. & S.E., 62 N.W. & S.W., 55 N.E., & 54 N.W., etc. 

 * Hull, op. eit. p. 12. 



6 See Geological Survey map, Sheets 62 S.W. & 54 N.W. 



2o2 



