PROCREDINGS OF THE COTTESWOLD CLUB 233 



rounded pebbles had been shaped by marine action, the 

 sub-angular fragments by river water. But the marine 

 action had had no share in the making of the gravel 

 deposit : the pebbles had been rounded before they were 

 enclosed in the strata from whence the river had derived 

 them, namely, the Trias rocks. The lessons are that the 

 least abraded fragments in a gravel pit indicate the agency, 

 and that the finding of marine-rounded pebbles in a gravel 

 is no evidence that the sea formed that particular deposit. 



A lesson similar to the last was learnt at Alderley 

 Edge. This is a fine Red Sandstone escarpment over- 

 hanging the Cheshire plain as a bold cliff. In the sand- 

 stone are numerous very rounded quartz pebbles. Where 

 the sandstone had become disintegrated the pebbles were 

 collected as a kind of gravel. But the rounding of the 

 pebbles was anterior to the formation of the sandstone. 

 Sitting on the cliff near these pebbles I wondered if, in 

 propounding the theory of the " Straits of Malvern," the 

 authors thereof might not have been led astray by finding 

 in our local gravels sea-worn pebbles, whose date of 

 abrasion was not that of the formation of the gravels, but 

 of a period anterior to the deposition of the rocks whence 

 they had been derived. 



Rocks of such a character we saw in several exposures 

 of Bunter Conglomerate during the first day of our return 

 journey. A road section near Leek, in Staffordshire, was 

 particularly fine, some of the embedded pebbles being as 

 large as cricket balls. 



The country about Leek is very hilly ; it is, in fact, 

 a southern portion of the Pennine range. From a 

 geological point of view, perhaps, the true Pennine range 

 might be confined to the area of the Palaeozoic rocks ; 

 but the hilly country extends southwards to the Mcsozoic 

 strata. And the sculpturing of the strata of both Lras 

 has been comparatively recent. 



