Extract

Among the many interesting features which the mineral formations of the County of Salop present to the geological observer, there is none more worthy of study than that line of hills of which the Wrekin is the most celebrated. It has attracted the notice of several mineralogists, and especially of Dr. Townson;* but even this acute observer appears to have fallen into some important errors on the subject, principally from not having investigated with sufficient accuracy the nature and bearings of the different beds on each side of the elevated central ridge. I shall not therefore, I trust, be considered as occupying unprofitably the time of the Geological Society by the following general sketch of my own observations on the same district.

The red sandstone, which forms the surface of so large a portion of Cheshire and of the northern half of Shropshire, extends but a few miles south of Shrewsbury to the west of the confluence of the Tern and Severn: from this latter point a line drawn N. E. to the town of Newport will form the boundary of the sandstone in this quarter; but from Newport this rock passes nearly due south between Shifnal and Prior’s Leigh to the Severn, crosses this river three or four miles above Bridgenorth, and accompanies its course to Wire forest, the extreme south-eastern point of the county. The eastern limit of this tract extends into Staffordshire, approaching within a few miles of the county-town, whence it proceeds south to the village