A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE 



resting at a base level of 320 feet on the Lower Red Sandstone or Permian, 

 occurs a repetition of the gravels of the Long Hills with many rounded 

 masses of decayed volcanic ash, suggesting as before a Lake District 

 origin. The gravels, however, do not extend much further, as near 

 Worksop there is no trace of them. 1 



Near where this gravel lies are some enormous boulders. Thus, 

 two flat blocks of Millstone Grit, one deeply scored with glacial striae, lie 

 in the valley west of the Long Hills, and a boulder of 24 cubic feet of 

 a tough volcanic ash lies by the stream side to the north of the same 

 hills at a height of 390 feet; a large basaltic rock of 27 cubic feet lies on 

 the road from Kirkby Forest to Sherwood Place at a height of 555 feet, 

 and a similar rock, but smaller in size, rests by the pump in the centre of 

 Blidworth village at 436 feet. 



The varying heights and the changes of the underlying rock where 

 this gravel is found show us the form and character of the surface of the 

 country on which they were deposited, since the contour has not there 

 been sensibly modified by denudation ; how far it has changed where they 

 do not lie cannot so easily be stated, but probably not much, and as the Ere- 

 wash valley contains few or no drift deposits it may be suggested that it 

 was occupied by a field of ice which in its motion pushed up the boulders 

 and carried forward the gravel as in a great terminal moraine. Possibly 

 the occupation of the great Trent basin by gravel instead of by Boulder 

 Clay may be explained in a similar but not identical manner. 



Similar gravel is found at the Grove Castle near Retford containing 

 ' a large pebble of coarsely crystalline granite with pinkish grey matrix 

 and dark prismatic crystals,' and a large block of Millstone Grit at 300 feet. 

 The broken ridge of 140-250 feet above O.D. that runs from Newington 

 near Bawtry by Everton to Gringley is capped by gravel containing 

 abundant fragments of Permian limestone,' and at Gringley a large 

 boulder, 30 cubic feet in size, of Carboniferous crinoidal limestone lies 

 at a point 275 feet above O.D. 3 



Gravels containing materials derived from the east have been very 

 little investigated. At Osberton near Worksop at about 60 feet above 

 O.D. two unnamed shells, identified by Professor E. Forbes with species 

 living in the German Ocean, are said to have been found 2 ; in gravel 

 that lies near the side of Rainworth Water, north-west of Blidworth, a 

 specimen of Gryphcea arcuata from the Lias and pieces of apparently 

 Triassic sandstone have been noted ; at Kersall the gravel underlying the 

 Boulder Clay contains fragments of Chalk and Lias 3 ; and there are 

 other noteworthy patches at Wilford Hill, Orton and Newark which 

 do not appear to be connected with the Trent drainage. 



Gravels deposited by the Trent are widely distributed along or near 

 its course, as at Beeston 30 feet above its present level, near Col wick 

 siding, at Gamston and east of Newark and many other places. The 



1 Fox-Strangways, Quart. Journ. Geol. Sue. vol. liv. 

 ' Thorpe, Geol. and Pal. Sue. Yorkshire Proc. vol. v. 

 8 Geol. Survey Mem. sheet 83. 



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