Neale 58. | 10 THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THEIR AGE. 187 
LY. Norvta-kASTERN ENGLAND. 
A seam of breccia sometimes appears at the base of the Permian 
in North-eastern England. This, in the Nottinghamshire district, 
was described by the late Edward Wilson * as attaining a maximum 
thickness of about 4 feet and consisting of angular to subangular 
fragments—sandstone, ironstone, and shales from the neighbouring 
Coal-Measures, with similar fragments of slate, quartzite, quartz, 
ete.; these seams of breccia also occur locally in the overlying 
sandstone. This basement-breccia, he states, maintains its average 
thickness and coarse texture, and must have been simultaneously 
deposited over a considerable number of square miles. It might be 
attributed, in his opinion, to droppings from melting icebergs or 
floes, but he remarks that, as it comes above a line of erosion, no 
special explanation may be needed. He regards it as the base of 
the equivalent of the ‘Marl-Slate,’ the Rothliegende not being 
represented in this district. 
V. THe Mrpianp Brecctras. 
Some of the most important sections of this breccia are well 
exposed on the Clent Hills, along the margin of the Malvern- 
Abberley range and to the west of Enville, cropping out over an 
area of about 500 square miles; but they have also been found, 
though thin, in Leicestershire. In the former region they attracted 
the attention of geologists more than sixty years ago; but full 
descriptions have been given and their origin discussed, by the late 
Sir Andrew Ramsay,’ Prof. Hull,’ and recently by Mr. Wickham 
King.* 
In the Enville district the breccia is underlain by a mass. 
of sandstones, interstratified with marls, about 850 feet thick 
(maximum), in which are two beds of conglomerate, rather local, 
one of which attains to 60 or 80 feet. Here the breccia is followed 
by sandstones and marls, its principal outcrop running in a general 
north-westerly and south-easterly direction, and the greatest thick- 
ness being about 225 feet. In the Clent district the breccia attains 
its maximum, 450 feet, and covers Wychbury Hill (about 750 feet), 
Clent Hill (997 feet), Walton Hill (1036 feet), and Romsley Hill 
(930 feet).? Here it runs nearly north to south, parallel to, and 
mainly on the western flank of, a strip of older Paleozoics, from the 
northern end of which it continues in a north-westerly direction. 
The breccia is rudely stratified, and is occasionally interrupted by thin 
layers of sandstone, its materials becoming rather less worn in the 
upper parts until it passes into marl ; the fragments vary from angular 
to subangular, and are very commonly from 5 to 6 inches in diameter, 
1 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xxxii (1876) p. 535. 
4 Ibid. vol. xi (1855) p. 185. 
* Mem. Geol. Surv. 1869 ‘Triassic & Permian Rocks of the Midland Counties.” 
* Quart. Journ. oper Soc. vol. lv (1899) p. 97; see also Proc. Geol. Assoc. 
vol. xv (1898) p. 372 
? W. Wickham King, ‘Midland Naturalist’ vol. xvi “(1893) p: 25, 
