ADDRESS 



TO THE 



LINCOLNSHIRE NATURALISTS' UNION, 



GBIMSBY, 1894, 



I'.V 



F. M. BURTON, F.L.S., F.G.S., 



PRESIDENT. 



Hoic the Land hctirccn Galnshorourjlt and Lincoln icas formed. 



TN addressing you on a geological subject, as I am about to do, I 

 --^ do not forget that this is a Society of Naturalists; and as 

 Geology, to those who have not studied it, may perhaps have an 

 uninviting aspect, I intend to avoid technical details as far as 

 possible, endeavouring at the same time to show that, in point of 

 interest, Geology comes quite up to that of any other branch of 

 natural science, and pcrliaps, I may say, exceeds most of them. 



Geologists divide the Earth's strata, for convenience, into 

 3 great divisions, — Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary, — and as, in 

 Lincolnshire, we have representatives of the entire Secondary 

 series, from the strata above the Trias on the west to the chalk on 

 the east, this fact alone must give to the Geology of the County 

 a special interest and value. I am not, however, going to speak of so 

 wide an area now, but intend to confine my address to the low fiat 

 land between Gainsborough and Lincoln — a distance of some 15 

 miles, — alluding to the adjoining strata, only as they are necessary 

 to explain the structure and present configuration of the district. 



Now, as we stand on the high ground above Gains- 

 borough and look over the Trent, we are on the oldest strata 

 in the County,— the Upper Keuper beds as they are called, — at 

 the top of the Trias or new red sand stone, the highest beds 

 in the great Primary Division ; and if we could be carried back 

 to the time when these beds were laid down, we should see, instead, 

 of the present country, a vast lake, or inland sea, surrounded 

 on all sides by land, which extended far out into the Atlantic 



