56 LOWER NEW RED, WORCESTERSHIRE AND STAFFORDSHIRE. 



beneath the Red Sandstone. Between Hales Owen and Hagley, at Wassail Grove and 

 Lutley, poor coal seams are apparent in natural sections, forming the lowest portion of 

 this system, or top of the carboniferous strata, and dipping beneath the conglomerate 

 and red sandstone of the St. Kenelms and Clent Hills. (See PL 29. fig. 10.) Among 

 the most instructive excavations opened in these rocks, are those of the Quarry Hill 

 south of Hales Owen, where thick-bedded, red, gritty sandstones, both soft and hard, 

 are extracted for troughs, slabs, and building purposes, and contain irregular thin seams, 

 filled with minute fragments of coal ; whilst lower beds rising from beneath, pass into 

 layers of hard grey grit, in parts calcareous, their surfaces being covered with fragments 

 of coal and impressions of stems of plants. From these beds, there is a gradual 

 passage into the coal tract of the neighbourhood of Hales Owen. At Coleman's Hill 

 and Hodge Hill, in the same district, there are other sections, the strata in which, 

 though differing somewhat in mineral characters, belong to this lower division of the 

 New Red System ; and these also exhibit passages into the coal measures. At Cole- 

 man's Hill, the upper beds consist of yellowish, soft, gritty sandstone, containing some 

 small calcareous fragments, a few pebbles of quartz, blotches of red shale, and frag- 

 ments of sandstone with impressions of stems of plants 1 , This sandstone graduates 

 into thick-bedded calcareous grit, spotted with bluish grey, black and yellow colours, 

 and partially burnt for lime. The spotted appearance is due to fragments of coaly 

 matter, mixed with imperfect concretions of crystallized carbonate of lime and blotches 

 of ochreous decomposing sandy matter. The sandstones of this age occupy a distinct 

 ridge from Hodge Hill by the Two Gates, to near Hales Owen. They are for the most 

 part of a yellow colour, are very cellular, and are not unlike portions of this part of the 

 system in the county of Durham, which Professor Sedgwick has identified with the rothe- 

 todte-liegende. I allude particularly to the soft, white, yellow and red sandstones on the 

 banks of the Wear, at Clacks Heugh, &c, near Sunderland. On the sides of the 

 gulleys, poor and thin seams of coal are exposed ; and one of them occurring in grey 

 calcareous breccia, similar to that of Coleman's Hill, is made up of fragments of coal 

 sandstone, schist, and limestone, in a calcareous cement. In the bed of a brook under 

 Wassail Grove, I observed a seam of this coal three to four inches thick, overlaid by 

 what may be termed a carboniferous cornstone, somewhat resembling that of Coleman's 

 Hill, and containing small interspersed fragments of bituminized vegetable matter, 

 rounded and apparently water-worn, like the pieces of drifted wood seen upon the 

 sea-coast. The calcareous bed passes upwards into thin-bedded, brownish yellow sand- 

 stone, weathering to a reddish colour. In the fine natural sections seen as we descend 



1 Mr. W. Hamilton, then Secretary to the Geological Society, accompanied me in one of my visits to the 

 district around Hales Owen, and he can bear witness to the quantity of impressions of stems, &c. of plants 

 which we observed in the strata of the Lower New Red Sandstone. Specimens of these may be obtained 

 in the Quarry Hill and Coleman's Hill. 



