On the Divisions and Correlation of the Upper Portion of the Coal-Measures, with special reference to their Development in the Midland Counties of England

W hile working out the flora of the British coalfields, I have found no group of rocks more interesting than the group of sandstones and marls, frequently of a red, purple, or mottled colour, and their associated limestones, which lie above the Middle Coal-Measures of the Potteries Coalfield. When preparing my paper on ‘The Fossil Flora of the Coalfield of the Potteries,’ the classification which I adopted was that used by Mr. John Ward, but at that time little was known about the thickness and stratigraphical relationship of the beds forming this group. The classification adopted by Mr. Ward is as follows:— In the present paper my remarks will be restricted to the rocks here called Permian and Upper Coal-Measures. Any reference that may be made to the underlying group will be merely incidental. At the time when my paper on the fossil flora of the Potteries Coalfield was written, I had seen no plants from the so-called ‘Permian’ of that area, and, in regard to these rocks, Mr. John Ward says, in the work already mentioned:— That these rocks were Carboniferous and not Permian, I felt quite certain: for, apparently, the same so-called ‘Permian’ rocks were passed through while sinking the shaft of the Hamstead Colliery at Great Barr, near Birmingham; they contained a typical Upper Coal-Measure flora; and with this series I classed them at the time. Messrs. F. G. Meachem & H. Insley had previously referred these rocks to the Upper Coal-Measures. I shall have occasion to refer