File:The Quarterly journal of the Geological Society of London (12711608933).jpg

198
PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL. SOCIETY. .Feb. 21,
in 1852, when I found fragments oi Lepidodendron and Catamites'^
in a quarry near Exhall. Encouraged by this discovery, these rocks
were diligently searched for fossils during the completion of the geolo-
gical lines by Mr. Howell, and in the same quarry a few casts of a shell
were discovered by our collector Mr. Richard Gibbs, which Mr. Salter
considers to be of Permian type and more allied to Strophalosia than
to any other genus. The silicified trees found near Allesley and Me-
riden, and apparently several species of Caulerpites and Breea now
in the Warwick Museum f, belong also to the same rocks (formerly
supposed Bunter species) ; and, in addition to this, it is interesting
to know that the beds near Kenilworth in which the Labyrinthodon
Bucklandi was found by Dr. Lloyd ;jl belong to the same series.
This reptile, previously considered of Bunter date, must therefore be
transferred to the Permian period. Beds of calcareous conglomerate
are associated with the strata in which all of these fossils were found,
and are similar to those which underlie the breccia near Enville ; and
it is not improbable they may be general equivalents ; in which case,
trees, reptile, and marine shells are of earlier date than the great
deposits of breccia. The Permian marls and sandstone near Enville,
that overlie the breccias, are in no respect dissimilar from those that
lie beneath ; and the breccias themselves, whenever well exposed,
are seen to possess a distinctly stratified structure. Not only do
the stones generally lie on their flat sides, but sometimes there are
long marly and sandy layers and beds in the midst of the mass.
Fig. 10. — Stratified Permian Breccia.
'V.tUo
Glacial origin of the Breccia. — They were therefore deposited in
water with considerable regularity, and, as we have seen, over a large
area. It is altogether unlikely that the stones were poured into the
sea by rivers in the manner in which some conglomerates are formed
on steep coasts, where mountain-ridges nearly approach the shore,
1st, because the fragments, being derived almost exclusively from
the Longmynd country, if the sea then washed its old shores, no

• Prof. E. Forbes considered it to be Catamites Mougeotii? Mr. Salter thinks
  

it Calamites Suckovii, a Carboniferous species.
t Caulerpites oblonga, C. triangularis, C. biangularis, Breea entassoides. No
precise locality is given for these specimens.