172 MIDLAND UNION PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 



must refei' you to the paper by Mr. E. Wilson, F.G.S., " On the 

 Permian Kocks of the North-east of England," published in last 

 year's Midland Naturalist, for which the first Darwin Medal has been 

 awarded. 



Next above the Permian rocks and separated from them by a slight 

 but still perceptible unconformity comes the Triassic series, the I'ocks 

 of which, striking nearly due north and south, occupy the major portion 

 of the county. The Lower Division, or Bunter Sandstone, is represented 

 by the Lower Mottled Sandstone and the Pebble Beds. The Lower 

 Mottled Sandstone yields moulding sand for the iron furnaces. It is 

 well exposed at Mansfield, and at several points in the Leen Valley. 

 The Pebble Beds are finely shown in the cliff-like eminence on which 

 Nottingham Castle stands. The Bunter Sandstone occupies a consider- 

 able area in North Notts, comprising much of the region once occupied 

 by Sherwood Forest. Being a porous sandstone, resting on impervious 

 strata, it forms an excellent natural reservoir for water supply. Its 

 dryness also well adapts it as a site for building purposes. Being 

 comparatively soft and easily hewn, dwelling places were hollowed out 

 in it by the ancient inhabitants of the country. Hence the earliest 

 Saxon settlers termed the place Suodena-gabam (the home of caves). 

 The rock beneath the town is honeycombed by extensive cellars and 

 long passages. At Snienton Hermitage some of the caves are still 

 faced with doors and windows and inhabited, and the " Park holes " 

 bear traces of a primitive kind of sculpture. Beneath Nottingham 

 Castle are extensive dungeons, and the bold escarpment in front is tra- 

 versed from top to bottom by a tortuous subterranean passage known as 

 Mortimer's Hole. The Upper Trias or Keuper series is represented by 

 three subdivisions — the Basement Beds, the Waterstoues, and the Bed 

 Marl. The Basement Beds, a fluctuating series of red and white coarse 

 sandstones, are only well shown in Stapleford Hill and the Hemlock 

 Stone, but have been temporarily exposed on the east side of Nottiag- 

 ham. The Waterstones consist of alternating porous sandstones and 

 red marls. They are exposed at several points on the east side of the 

 town. Both these rocks have in past times been quarried for building 

 purposes, and may be seen in several old walls and buildings. The 

 Red Marl is a series of bright red clays with a few thin beds of hard 

 white sandstone, with veins and sometimes thick beds of gypsum. 

 The Red Marl and also the clays of the Waterstones have for long past 

 been extensively worked for bricks on the high ground east of the 

 town, and Nottingham may truthfully be said to have once lain ou 

 Mapperley Plains. The Triassic series is almost entirely destitute of 

 fossil organisms. The Bunter Sandstone yields nothing excepting the 

 occasional f ossiliferous (juartzite pebbles which have been derived from 

 metamorphosed Silui'ian rocks. From the uppermost gypsiferous beds 

 of the Red Marls a suite of Foraminifera has been described by 

 Messrs. Parker and Jones, from Chellaston HiU (Derbyshire), but as 

 these were not actually found in situ a certain amount of doubt appears 

 to hang over their authenticity as Triassic — a doubt that it would be 



