of the county of leicester. o 



The Lias. 



The general dip or inclination of the stratified rocks of England 

 being to the east, we shall in any particular district find the highest 

 formation on the eastern extremity,* older or lower rocks rising out 

 to the surface as we proceed westward. This is the case in Leicester- 

 shire. The very eastern extremities of the county, at its junction 

 with Northamptonshire, Rutland, and Lincolnshire, are occupied by 

 the inferior oolite, the lowest bed of the great oolite formation of 

 England. From beneath this inferior oolite comes out the lias with 

 a very gentle rise to the west, so that though its whole thickness 

 may not be more than four or five hundred feet, it comprises a tract 

 of country from five to ten miles wide. The western boundary of 

 this tract, or the line where the bottom of the lowest bed comes to 

 the surface, enters Leicestershire a little north of Loughborough, and 

 runs by Barrow-upon-Soar, Sileby, Queniborough, Humberstone, 

 Ebington, Kilby, and a little north of Lutterworth into Warwickshire. 



The lias consists for the most part of shaly clay with bands of 

 hard stone, called marlstone, in its middle portion, and bands of lime- 

 stone in its upper and lower parts. The lower portion in Leicester- 

 shire, forms a line of low hills running in the neighbourhood of the 

 places mentioned above, and contains several thin beds of limestone, 

 which is occasionally quarried and used for agricultural or other pur- 

 poses. That worked at Barrow-upon-Soar is the most celebrated, 

 both for its organic remains and for its useful property of hardening 

 under water when turned into cement. There are at Barrow seven 

 beds of limestone, none of which much exceed a foot in thickness, and 

 which are separated from each other by beds of shale varying from 

 one to seven feet thick. There frequently occur in the shale hard, 

 flattened, nodular masses of stone, which, when split open, display a 

 fossil fish with its beautifully enamelled scales, or the bones of a sau- 

 rian reptile. 



These relics, together with the Belemnite, the Ammonite, the 

 Nautilus, and the shells called Plagiostoma and Gryphcea, are found 

 also both in the shale and the limestone ; but the latter fossils arc 

 not so numerous as in some other places, and at Barrow all are valu- 

 ed at exorbitant rates by the native collectors. The fish are some- 

 times preserved with great delicacy, even the fine rays of the tail and 



• This rule lias nf course its exceptions in particular districts, where local 

 causes have modified the dip or inclination of the strata. 



