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a EEE 
A CHAPTER IN THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE PAST. 45 
In Europe the strata underlying the plain are of much more 
recent date than those constituting the Pennine Chain. At the 
base of the Derbyshire Hills they consist of sandstones and 
marls belonging to the New Red Sandstone Series, which, 
sweeping round the base of the hills, follow every curve and inlet, 
so as to suggest, what is actually the case, that they were 
deposited round the flanks of the older rocks at a time when the 
high land of Derbyshire had its southern coast line in the Weaver 
Hills. 
Far away to the south and south-east we can discern, rising 
out of the sea-like plain, three tracts of elevated ground, which 
mark the position of the Coal Fields of South Staffordshire, 
Warwickshire, and Leicestershire, respectively. In all three of 
these tracts Carboniferous Rocks are again brought to the surface 
in dome-like masses, from which the overlying New Red Rocks 
have been stripped by the waste of ages. These Carboniferous 
Rocks doubtless owe their present position to the action of the 
same forces which elevated the Pennine Range. In the case of 
the Leicestershire Coalfield, upon the western edge of which our 
town of Burton is situated, I shall be able to give you some proof 
of the correctness of this statement, but I shall have little time to 
refer to the South Staffordshire and Warwickshire areas. I may 
state, however, that, unlike the Derbyshire district, in all three of 
these coalfields we have occasional glimpses of tne old sea floor 
upon which the Carboniferous rocks were deposited; thus 
affording us valuable information in our attempt to reconstruct the 
physical features of the country at that very remote period. 
On the Eastern side of what we may term our home district of 
the Leicestershire or Ashby coalfield, this old floor upon which 
the Carboniferous sediments were thrown down has been bared to 
the light of day, exposing in Charnwood Forest a large tract of 
some of the oldest rocks in the British Isles, consisting mainly of 
slates, grits, volcanic agglomerates, and syenite, and occupying a 
ridge of ground about eight miles long and five miles broad. 
Although the elevation of the Charnwood Ridge does not, in its 
highest point, reach more than goo feet above sea level, it 
