Dec. 26, 1884.] 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



517 



beauty. Attempts have almost everywhere been made to 

 oiltivate the poor, thiu, stony soil, with the result that, 

 while nature has been spoiled, man has gathered but a 

 scanty reward for his toil. 



It is probable that, if our grandfathers could have fore- 

 seen that spread of a love for the study of nature among all 

 classes which now exists, together with the great increase 

 ill the wealth and population of this country, instead 

 of "enclosing" and "disafforesting" Charnwood, they 

 would have retained it as a national park, have planted it 

 and cared for it, and preserved it as a safe refuge for all 

 tliat is wild and free in the native fauna and flora of our 

 country. Charnwood is encirckd by railways. On the 

 east the Midland main-line runs from Trent to Leicester ; 

 and, by getting out at either Silel>y (six miles north of 

 Leicester), Barrow-on-Soar (noted for its lower lias lime- 

 stone), or Loughborough, we shall find ourselves within a 

 moderate walk (two or three miles) of the area in which 

 the old rocks rise to the surface. (Fig- 1-) 



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M stALC OF Mills 



Kjir. 1. — Map of Charnwood Forest, with the Narborongh 

 Distrist. HorizoDtal shadmct = slatey rocks; cross 8hading = 

 igneous rocks; dotted lines = railways. 



On the west side of the forest there is the ilidland 

 branch line from Leicester to Burton, which actually 

 touches the forest at Bardon Hill station ; while the circuit 

 iscompl'ted by the little railway lately opened between 

 Coalville (the next station to Bardon) and Loughborough, 

 which skirts the northern and north-western edges. 



There are two very pleasant villages in Charnwood where 

 the tourist will find good accommodation, Woodhouse Eaves 

 on the eastern side, and Newtown Linford (beloved of artists) 

 on the south. At the Forest Rock Hotel (in the north-west 

 corner, near Bardon Hill) I have found good quarters, either 

 for the crowd to lunch (and the onslaught of the parties of 



geologists whom I have led from time to time requires 

 some preparation), or for the solitary knight of the hammer 

 who is belated while puzzling over the intricate rocks of 

 Peldar Tor and High Towers. 



The maps required will be 63 N.E. and 63 N.W., 

 published by the Geological Survey ; but let the student 

 remember that these maps were made twenty-five years 

 ago, and that we have " learned much since then." As a 

 corrective to the map, nothing can be better than the 

 admirable papers by Messrs. Hill and Bonney.* During 

 the eight years for which I was curator of the Leicester 

 Museum, I devoted some time to the investigation of the 

 Charnwood rocks, and the results of my work are embodied 

 in a " Geology of Leicestershire," which is published by 

 Messrs. J. & T. Spencer, of the Market-place, Leicester. 

 The Leicester Museum contains — or did contain, for I have 

 not visited it lately — a very fine series of Charnwood 

 rocks and minerals ; but I was also able to send typical 

 sets to the British Museum (South Kensington), the Jermyn- 

 street Geological Museum, and most of the provincial 

 museums, and I should advise those who mean to visit 

 Charnwood to previously inspect these collections if 

 possible. 



To most travellers who study scenery, the Charnwood 

 Hills come as a pleasant surprise. Rising to heights of 

 four hundred or five hundred feet above the surrounding 

 plain, they have all the aspect of a miniature mountain- 

 range, such as one little expects to find planted among the 

 soft clays and sandstones of the Midlands. The highest 

 points are Bardon Hill on the west, 902 ft. above sea-level; 

 and Beacon Hill on the east, 840 ft. 



Nor is the surprise of the geologist abated when he walks 

 over the ground, and minutely examines the rocks in the 

 quarries and on the hill-sides. In the first place, there are 

 coarse slates, and finer workable slates, with volcanic ashes 

 and agglomerates of a most remarkable nature and appear- 

 ance. Apparently breaking through these sedimen- 

 tary rocks are great bosses of syenite and granite, 

 yet the junction between the two sets of rocks — the 

 stratified or slaty, and the unstratified or syenitic — is 

 hardly anywhere visible, so that it has been argued by a 

 certain school of geologists that the latter rock (the 

 syenite) is really only the fame thing as the coarse slate, 

 but that it is slate which has been so greatly altered by 

 heat and other agencies (metamorphosed) that it has 

 become a crystalline rock. By careful search I have, how- 

 ever, been able to find sections which entirely disprove this 

 view, and which show that the syenites are truly igneous 

 rocks which have come up from below in a melted state, 

 and have forced themselves through the slaty beds. From 

 this it follows that the slates aie the older of the two. 

 But what is the age of the Charnwood slates 1 That is a 

 very difficult question, and one which has hitherto been 

 little more than a matter of conjecture. Quite recently, 

 however, discoveries have been made, not in the Forest 

 region itself, but at some little distance from it, which 

 throw much light upon the question. 



When Profes.sor Sedgwick examined Charnwood in 1833, 

 he considered the strata to be of " Cambrian " age, and he 

 was followed in this by Professor Hull (of the Geological 

 Survey), who mapped the country in 18G0. 



From the romarkab'e similaii'y of the rocks to the 

 " Green Slates and Porphyries ' of the Lake district. Pro- 

 fessor Bonney was at one time led to assign the Charnwood 

 beds to the Lower Silurian period, but he has since acknow- 

 ledged that the discovery— by Dr. Hicks— of a great series 



* "Quarterlv Journ.al of the Geological Society,' 

 p. 75t ; vol. 3i, p. 199 ; and vol. 36, p. 337. 



vol. 33, 



