CALCAREOUS CONGLOMERATE IN WORCESTERSHIRE. 



47 



and Clent Hills, and appear also on the northern end of the Lickey ridge of quartz rock, 

 whence they range by St. Kenelms to Hagley. In this course they distinctly overlie 

 a great formation hereafter to be described as the Lower New Red Sandstone, and rise 

 high on the sides of the trap rocks of the Clent Hills. They here vary much in im- 

 portance, particularly near St. Kenelms and Hagley (see Map) , some masses having a 

 thickness of fifty and sixty feet, others of not more than six or eight. At Gannow 

 Green, near St. Kenelms, there are extensive lime-works in this rock, an account of 

 which may suffice for those at other localities. 



The beds dip very slightly to the south, and are separated from each other by sandy 

 marls and clay. The greater part of this rock is made up of angular fragments of a 

 pre-existing, very compact limestone, which, from the corals and other fossils found in it, 

 proves to be the carboniferous limestone. In some parts of the quarries the rock consists 

 of concretions of marl and fragments of sandstone and grits with coal plants, imbedded 

 in a pink calcareous grit ; but in others, of small pebbles of quartz and still older rocks, 

 enveloped in a red, ferruginous, earthy basis, penetrated in all directions by white, 

 crystallized carbonate of lime. The matrix and cement are throughout very calcareous, 

 and the colour of the rock varies with that of the ingredients, from a reddish tinge, to 

 shades of yellow and white. This conglomerate follows all the sinuosities and pro- 

 montories of the Clent Hills, as is well seen between the hills of Romsley and Walton, 

 where, associated with the Red Sandstone, it enters into a deep recess. It also folds 

 round Hagley Park (near the parsonage), accommodating its outline to the form of the 

 hills, where it has been described by the Rev. J. Yates as a calcareous breccia, consist- 

 ing of grains of quartz, decomposing felspar, and limestone 1 . Transverse sections, from 

 north to south across the strata, are exhibited on the sides of the roads which ascend 

 to the Clent Hills by St. Kenelms, or by Hunnington (see PI. 29. fig. 10.), and expose 

 several lower calcareous courses, separated by argillaceous red marls and sandstone. 

 Calcareous bands prevail so much in this district, re-occurring at intervals in the escarp- 

 ments through a thickness of many hundred feet, that if they were all included in this 

 division it would be impracticable to define with precision their limits, since they gra- 

 duate into, and form a part of the Lower Red Sandstone, which in its turn overlies and 

 passes into the coal measures. (Quarry Hill, Hales Owen, Colmer's Hill, Hodge Hill, 

 see PI. 29. fig. 10.) It will indeed be shown in the sequel, that other calcareous bands, 

 for the most part, however, of true concretionary structure, are even traceable down 

 into the coal measures • and for this reason I restrict the comparison with the Magnesian 

 Limestone or Bolomitic Conglomerate, to the mass of this rock which immediately lies 

 beneath the central sandstones (Bunter Sandstein, or Gres bigarre.) 



Calcareous conglomerates are to be seen at many points round the outline of the 

 Dudley and Wolverhampton coal-fields, generally at some little distance from the edge of 



1 Geol. Trans, vol. ii. p. 250. 

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