Vol. 51.] IN THE 'PERMIAN ' ROCKS OF WYRE FOREST. 539 



thickly-bedded, coarser, and darker-coloured downwards. Towards 

 the base several spheroidal masses of very hard calcareous sand- 

 stone occurred, 5 or 6 inches in diameter. These ' hailstones ' are 

 a remarkable feature of the Grindstone-beds of Alveley and Extons, 

 which occur some distance higher up in the same series of red rocks. 

 Nos. 3 and 2 are thickly-bedded coarse sandstones, pebbles and 

 fragments being more frequent in No. 2. These fragments are 

 chiefly of a pinkish limestone. 



No. 1 is a cornstone, or conglomerate of small subangular and 

 rounded fragments of limestone — usually pink, but sometimes white 

 — and occasional fragments of siliceous rocks, the fragments being 

 embedded in a sandy base of a purplish-red colour, and the whole 

 cemented together into a hard compact rock by calcium carbonate. 



"We have, then, in this cutting what is probably the decomposing 

 representative of a once somewhat thicker and more solid band of 

 limestone, 1 containing iSjrirorbis pusillus, with a measured thickness 

 of at least 65 feet of red rocks beneath ; and an examination of 

 the red rock in the immediate neighbourhood leads me to believe 

 that the band cannot be less, and may be considerably more, than 

 200 or 300 feet above the top of the ordinary Coal Measures. 



The limestone occurs in the triangular patch of ' Permian ' north- 

 west of Highley, for lumps of it are found in the road at Green Hall 

 and in the brook south of Hodge Nichols. It is again met with as 

 large lumps in some small hollows in a field west of Quarry House ; 

 as lumps in the road at Sutton ; and still farther north in Spadeley 

 Eough, east of Chelmarsh. In this direction I have followed it no 

 farther. 



Bowels Dingle. — Finally, it occurs in the form of numerous large 

 blocks in the stream flowing through The Dingle above Allum Bridge, 

 South-west of Astley there is a footbridge across the stream, and 

 close to the great line of fault which repeats the whole of the 

 ' Permian ' series here. Beneath the footbridge and up the stream 

 for some distance, large lumps of the limestone occur, and the out- 

 crop cannot be far away. One lump was 22 inches in length. The 

 sides of the stream show light red sandy shales with green spots, 

 dipping about N. at 80°. Evidently the fault passes close by and 

 has brought up the Spirorbis-limestone on the upthrow side. Pieces 

 of the limestone occur farther north, at King's Nordley ; and farther 

 south, in Perryhouse Dingle. 



I briefly mentioned the discovery of this limestone at a meeting 

 of the South Staffordshire Institution of Mining Engineers on July 

 5th, 1894, and it was again referred to on Dec. 6th following. 2 



From such descriptions of Spirorbis-limestones associated with 

 red rocks as I have been able to consult, it would appear that the 

 newly-discovered band agrees most closely in its mode of occurrence 



1 On nodular limestones, see Rutley, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xlix. 

 (1893) pp. 372-384. 



2 Trans. Fed. Inst. Mining Engineers, vol. vii. (1894) p. 577 & vol. viii, 

 (1895) p. 356. 



