48 



CALCAREOUS CONGLOMERATE IN SHROPSHIRE. 



the coal-bearing strata, and always dipping away from or overlying them ; Brand Hall on 

 the east, and Himley and Tettenhall on the west, may be cited as localities. To the 

 north of Kidderminster the bold escarpments of the New Red System, contain calca- 

 reous conglomerates which are burnt for lime at several places, between Enville on the 

 south and Coton on the north. At Coton and at Bowells, the rock is from twenty to 

 thirty feet thick, and is composed of the following varieties : 



(a.) Coarse Conglomerate, composed chiefly of fragments of carboniferous limestone, generally 

 rounded and red on their exterior. Some of them are of an oolitic structure ; others of a compact 

 limestone, containing encrinites, corals, and terebratulse, and discoloured partially by films of green 

 carbonate of copper, (b.) Conglomerate, with fewer fragments of limestone but pebbles of quartz, 

 Old Red Sandstone, &c. ; the whole cemented by pure white, crystallized carbonate of lime. This 

 conglomerate passes into a pink calcareous sandstone with pebbles and minute fragments of jasper. 



In attempting to refer the fragments of limestone to the original rock, the oolitic structure 

 distinctly proves, that some of them have not been derived from any formation below the Old Red 

 Sandstone, in none of which has such a structure ever been observed, whilst the nearest known 

 masses of a similar rock, are in the carboniferous limestone of the Clee Hills, twenty miles distant. 

 The included fossils belong likewise to the same deposit. The rolled condition of the fragments 

 also accords well with the belief of their having been drifted from the Clee Hills. 



Calcareous conglomerates, inclosing pebbles of felspathic trap rock, form the cap of the hills on 

 the left bank of the Severn opposite Bridgnorth, and they are found in the continuation of this ridge 

 in Apley Terrace. At the north-eastern extremity of the Coalbrook Dale coal-fields, similar rocks 

 occupying precisely the same geological position, are found in Nedge Hill ; and again, to the east 

 of Lilleshall Abbey, where the new mansion of the Duke of Sutherland is actually built upon them. 

 At this point the underlying strata consist of the Lower Red Sandstone, the overlying of the ordi- 

 nary red sandstone described in the last chapter. (See PI. 29. fig. 15.) The conglomerate in this 

 neighbourhood is not sufficiently calcareous to be burnt for lime, being chiefly composed of rounded 

 pebbles of sandstone and quartz with some fragments of carboniferous limestone in a base of quart- 

 zose and calcareous sand 1 . Here, as in other localities before mentioned, the strata dip away from 

 the adjacent coal-field, from which, as we shall afterwards perceive, they are separated by a great 

 fault. (See PI. 29. fig. 15.) The extensive denudation of the whole series of the New Red System 

 between Newport and Shrewsbury, has obliterated all traces of these calcareous conglomerates, 

 and they are not met with again till we reach the banks of the Meole Brook, about two and a half 

 miles south of Shrewsbury, where a small face of the rock can be seen which was formerly quarried 

 to burn into lime, but it is rapidly lost, dipping at about 30° under the overlying Red Sandstone. 

 To the south and west of this spot, the relations of the various members of the New Red System 

 which overlie the coal-bearing strata of Pontesbury, &c, are much obscured by a thick cover of 

 coarse gravel and clay ; but at Cardeston the calcareous conglomerate again rises to the surface. 



From Cardeston to Alberbury the rock is displayed for nearly two miles, constituting 

 a low ridge, which presents its escarpment to the carboniferous tracts of Wolliston, &c, 

 whilst the upper surface dips away to the north and east, and passes beneath the 



1 The hardness of the rock is such that the workmen call it the " Devil's haster." 



