118 NEOZOIC TIME. [CHAP. VIII. 



pebbles did originally come from the southward, it is by 

 no means certain that they were transported from their 

 original source in Triassic times. On this point Mr. H. B. 

 Woodward remarks : " Considering their hard nature, it 

 seems doubtful whether they were shaped in Triassic times. 

 Such smooth pebbles of grit or quartzite are rarely found 

 in the red conglomerates and breccias bordering the older 

 rocks ; hence the idea occurs that the Budleigh pebbles may 

 have been derived from some old (? Carboniferous) conglo- 

 merate." x 



The Bunter of the Midland counties consists of bright 

 red and yellow sandstones with a central zone of pebble 

 beds, and it is a remarkable fact that these pebble beds 

 are more constant and have a wider extension than the 

 sandstones above and below. Each division varies much 

 in thickness, but the whole attains a maximum thickness 

 in Cheshire of 1,800 feet ; it is nearly the same in Shrop- 

 shire, but thins southward through Worcestershire, and 

 dies out on the east side of the Abberley Hills. Thence 

 the subterranean boundary of the Bunter probably passes 

 eastward through Warwick to the neighbourhood of Rugby, 

 and thence northward into Leicestershire. The lower 

 sandstones thin out in Staffordshire along a line from 

 Dallaston and Stafford to Wolverhampton ; the upper 

 sandstones die out a little further east and north-east, so 

 that in Leicestershire a,nd Derbyshire only the pebble beds 

 remain. In the Nottingham district the Bunter division 

 is never thick, the upper sandstones being absent, the 

 lower sandstones being from 25 to 100 feet, and the pebble 

 beds being about 300 feet thick near Nottingham ; they 

 can be traced as far as Doncaster, but the pebbles become 

 fewer and smaller toward the north, and the rock seems 

 to pass into an orange- coloured sandstone, which can be 

 traced as far as Ripon. 



1 " Geology of England and Wales," second edition, p. 239. 



