Vol. 56.] BLNTER PEBBLE-BEDS OF THE MIDLANDS. 305 



of the Midlands was no insuperable objection to their having travelled 

 from a common source. Disciform pebbles could not be transported 

 so readily as spherical ones, and thus the presence of rounded 

 pebbles more to the north, and flatter ones more to the south, was 

 in complete accordance with the views advocated by the speaker. 



The Rev. Edwin Hill cited instances of the work required for 

 rounding materials. 



Mr. Walcot Gibson said that, without wishing to enter into the 

 general questions raised by the paper, he would point out that the 

 very limited exposure at Barnt Green showed how great a variety 

 of rocks occur in proximity to the Lickey quartzite ; while in North 

 "Staffordshire and in the Midlands generally the coarse shingle-beds 

 of the Bunter cling to the axes of elevation, and are absent or but 

 feebly developed in the great basin of Cheshire and South Lancashire. 

 The great unconformity at the base of the Trias everywhere visible 

 in the Midlands must always be taken into account in speculating 

 upon the physiography of the land in pre-Bunter times. 



Mr. Clement Reid remarked that the possibility of derivation of 

 the pebbles from the east was rejected by the Author. The cha- 

 racter of the older rocks hidden beneath the Chalk between Harwich 

 and the Wash is still, however, entirely unknown, though the 

 abundance of large Palaeozoic and metamorphic pebbles in the 

 Pliocene river-gravels, which are derived from the east, points to 

 an area of ancient rocks formerly exposed in that direction. The 

 quartzites, etc. in the Pliocene rocks do not much resemble those 

 exhibited by the Author. 



Prof. Watts, with reference to the rounding of the Bunter pebbles, 

 pointed out that pebbles — mainly of limestone, it is true — were 

 fairly well rounded on their short journey from the Maritime Alps 

 to the Mediterranean. The rounding of the pebbles might be 

 consistent with a Midland origin if they had been derived from a 

 conglomerate, and he wished to ask the Author whether he was 

 able to say that the ' Torridonian ' conglomerates of the Longmynd 

 were incapable of yielding the dominant rock-types of the Bunter 

 pebbles. 



The President said that the Torridonian conglomerates of the 

 North-west of Scotland contained pebbles of the same types as those 

 described by the Author — vein-quartz, quartzites, quartz-felspar, 

 grits, felsites, chert, and ' schorl-rock.' 



Mr. W. Whitaker and Mr. H. B. Woodward also spoke. 



The Author said that he had examined some of the Keuper 

 breccias to which Mr. Strahan had called attention. Angular 

 fragments of local rock were often commoner in them, but he 

 thought that when these breccias were formed the conditions had 

 altered. The difficulty about the less abundance of pebbles when 

 the Midland Bunter was followed northward was undoubtedly 

 a real one, but of that he himself had written in 1890, pointing 

 out that it was counterbalanced by the great thickening of the 

 Bunter as a whole in the same direction. Of this apparent 

 contradiction he suggested an explanation. Prof. Sollas had 



