POSSILIFEEOTJS PEBBLES IN THE DRIFT IN WARWICKSHIRE. 433 



certain well-known Silurian species and some of the rock specimens 

 I have from Normandy. In fact placing the majority of the War- 

 wickshire Drift pebbles in my collection side by side with those from 

 Devonshire and France, it would be impossible to separate them, 

 the character of the rock being identical, and the fossils, where pre- 

 sent, the same. This is a point of much interest, and while fossili- 

 ferous pebbles are on the whole rare (though, of course, very many 

 must have been overlooked), there are many which have the same 

 mineralogical character, and really form a considerable portion of 

 the gravels, and were, no doubt, derived from the same source and 

 originally belonged to a formation of the same age. With the 

 exception of a few Carboniferous fossils and others of later date a 

 very large percentage belong, as it appears, to the older Silurian 

 rocks, and wherever they may have occurred in situ must have been 

 originally derived from them. The absence, apparently, of Llan- 

 dovery fossils is remarkable, and seems to show that a very small 

 proportion of the Drift in this district had come from the Lickey 

 within sight and not so very far off. In a list of fossils from 

 the Bunter conglomerates near Cannock Chase, Mr. W. Molyneux*, 

 F.Gr.S., on the authority of the late Mr. Salter, assigns all the species to 

 Mountain -Limestone and Upper Silurian (May Hill sandstone, Llando- 

 very) groups, and not one Lower Silurian form occurs ; but Professor 

 Bonney records Ortliis reduce (budleigJiensis) f from the same district 

 on the authority of Mr. Etheridge. Mr. Davidson* is of opinion that 

 the majority of the Brachiopoda in the pebbles at Budleigh are 

 Devonian, which predominate; but the Lower Silurian are sufficiently 

 numerous and well preserved to have enabled Mr. Salter || to deter- 

 mine and identify a considerable number with certain species, giant 

 Lingulce and others, peculiar to the district of May and Gehard, 

 (Armorican sandstone) in Normandy. 



The small collection of Lower-Silurian fossils which I possess, the 

 result of several years' work, from a limited area of the Midland 

 District, must have been derived from a much nearer source than 

 Devon or Cornwall ; and Professor Bonney, in the same paper, justly 

 observes that, as from physical considerations it is almost impossible 

 that Cornish pebbles could have made their way into the country 

 round Cannock Chase, the only possible inference is a nearer one by 

 a further extension to the north-east of the old Silurian strata with 

 their fossiliferous sandstones and quartzites. The idea that they 

 can have been derived directly from Normandy is, of course, out of 

 the question ; and Mr. Davidson also contends for an extension, as I 

 do, of Silurian rocks in the Channel and nearer to Devonshire as a 



* Proceedings of the Dudley and Midland Geological and Scientific Society, 

 1877, p. 139. 



t Mr. A. H. Atkins, B.Sc, one of the masters of King Edward's School, Bir- 

 mingham, has lately found Orthis budleighensis, in situ, in one of the Bunter 

 pebble-beds, at Kinver Edge, near Stourbridge, which is another instance of 

 the presence of this species in the lower division of the Trias. I recognized 

 the species at once, and Mr. Davidson has since confirmed it. 



\ Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. vi., February, 1870, No. 101. 



| Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. ii., August, 1864, No. 79. 



