8 A POPULAR SKETCH OF THE GEOLOGY 



and south is obscured by diluvium,* but some indications of it may 

 be seen about Enderby and Narborough, and Enderby church is built 

 of it. Its width at the surface is about two miles, as some small quar- 

 ries may be seen in it on the Hinckley road, between the second and 

 third milestones. This sandstone apparently forms the uppermost 

 and thickest bed of several similar ones, which, alternating with red 

 marls, spread over all the western portion of the county, except where 

 inferior rocks are protruded to the surface. The country affords no 

 natural section ; but the engineer of the Bagworth colliery informed 

 me that they passed, in their sinking, through upwards of three hun- 

 dred feet of alternating red marls and white sandstones, one of the 

 latter of which was fifty feet thick ; but no accurate account had been 

 kept of their relative position. Every portion of the new red sand- 

 stone formation, in Leicestershire, is always as nearly horizontal as 

 possible, while the formations on which it rests are frequently highly 

 inclined.f Thus level beds of red marl may be seen resting on the 

 upturned edges of the slates of Swithland, or the sienite of Grooby, 

 on the mountain limestone of Ticknall and Grace Dieu, while a con- 

 siderable thickness of this formation spreads in level sheets over 

 some portions of the coal field without any regard to the dislocations 

 or different inclinations of the beds of the coal measures. 



Coal Measures. 



The next formation in the geological order below the new red 

 sandstone, is that which is commonly called the coal measures, con- 

 sisting of alternating beds of shale, sandstone, coal, and ironstone. 

 In some parts of England, there is a regular passage or gradation 

 from the new red sandstone into the coal measures, the deposition of 

 the different materials not having been interrupted by any disturbing 

 forces. In Leicestershire, however, this is not the case, the lower 

 portions of the new red sandstone, and possibly the uppermost beds 

 of the coal measures, being not known to exist in any portion of the 

 county. 



• Dr. Lloyd, of Leamington, informs me, that one of the characters of the 

 Warwick sandstone is irregularity, occasionally thinning out and then set- 

 ting in again along the same line of country. 



•f "When this is the case, the two formations are said to be unconformable. 

 It always denotes that an interval elapsed between their depositions, during 

 which the lower strata were affected by disturbing forces before the others 

 were deposited upon them. 



