Page:The South Staffordshire Coalfield - Joseph Beete Jukes - 1859.djvu/203

Rh Sir R. Murchison in his "Silurian System." On examining the Lickey Hills, however, it was soon perceived that the angular trap débris there rested on red sandstones, which had not then been separated from the New red sandstone formation. This trappean débris, therefore, was at first taken by myself for local drift, derived from the Clent Hills. In some places, however, it was seen apparently to pass under beds of the New red sandstone age, and therefore supposed there might have been a drift of it during the formation of that rock, and another of more recent epoch, deriving its materials either from the breccias of the New red, or directly from the Clent Hills, or partly from one and partly from the other. While examining some of these angular trap breccias. I was often led to entertain doubts as to their being really any trap in situ in the Clent Hills, but the trappean prestige was so strongly upon them that I did not venture to disturb it. The district indeed, though frequently traversed, was not then surveyed, as the " red rock" country was left till after the Coal-measures and older rocks were completed. Before even the coal-field was finished. I was called away (in 1850) to Ireland to assume the local direction of the survey there in consequence of my predecessor Professor Oldham's departure for India; and it was not till the year 1852 that I was enabled to return for a short time to complete my work sufficiently to allow of its publication. In the meantime Professor Ramsay and Mr. Hull had examined and made themselves masters of the Permian rocks, as shown in the North of Staffordshire; and Mr. Hull examined and partially surveyed the Permians round the South Staffordshire coal-field. Mr. Hull satisfied himself that the angular trappean breccia belonged to the Permian formation, and was a characteristic portion of it. In the spring of 1852 Professor Ramsay joined me in the district, when I had completed the examination of the coal-field; and we were soon aware that a more detailed and accurate survey of the Permian rocks round the south end of the coal-field was necessary. As I was compelled to go to London in order to make arrangements for the publication of this Memoir and free myself for what had become my more legitimate duties in Ireland. Professor Ramsay very kindly consented to devote some of his own time to the examination of this district; and the following are the results of this examination as he has provided me with them.

The Clent Hills and Wychbury Hill (formerly considered to be trap, and coloured as such in my own working maps,) consist altogether, as far as their higher portions are concerned, of the angular trappean breccia, with no appearance of any trap in situ at all, "the fragments being principally composed of greenstone, with a little sandstone and a porcelanic looking slaty rock like some of those west of the Stiperstones." The beds are rudely stratified, and appear to dip south or south-south-west at an angle of about 5°. This angular trappean breccia may be traced