796 : REPORT—1896. 
They clearly existed as islands in the Triassic and Carboniferous seas, and most 
probably stood up as mountains on the land in Old Red Sandstone times. The 
Trias runs up into the hollows and valleys of the old rocks, and from the small 
amount of débris which extends beyond the margins of the masses it is obvious 
that the smaller of these at any rate have been uncovered at a time geologically 
very recent. Their features are not those of the present day, but date dack partly 
to the subaérial denudation of Old Red Sandstone and probably earlier times, and 
partly to the aqueous denudation of Carboniferous and Triassic times. This is the 
reason for the peculiar character of the surface features presented by the old rock ; 
escarpments are practically absent, hard beds are cut off abruptly, the rocks strike 
across the ridges, and the landscape generally is not of the usual subaérial cha- 
racter. Present-day denudation, by clearing out the Triassic débris, has done 
little more than expose to-day a pre-Triassic landscape. 
The ancient rocks themselves may be classified as follows, in descending 
order :— 
Swithland and Groby slates . | 
Conglomerate and Quartzite . . | The Brand series. 
Purple and green beds . © . . j 
The olive hornstones of Bradgate . 
The Woodhouse beds. : : | 
Slate Agglomerate of Roecliffe 
Hornstones of Beacon Hill 
Felsitic Agglomerate : ; 
Rocks of Blackbrook . : : The Blackbrook series. 
The Maplewell series. 
This general succession corresponds with that made out by Messrs. Hill and 
Bonney, with whose observations the author is in substantial agreement. 
These divisions sweep round the semidome, which is exposed; it is elongated 
from N.W. to §.E., and broken by several longitudinal faults in the same direction. 
Probably there are some cross faults as well. 
The succession is most easily made out in the eastern side of the anticline, but 
even here the details are very much complicated, and it is not possible to trace 
some of the beds for any considerable distance, although the general succession 
seems quite clear. As Messrs. Bonney and Hill pointed out, the two agglomerates 
form a most useful index, and one which can be traced for a great part of the way 
round the Forest. The same may be said of the Beacon Hill beds and of the Brand 
series. 
The bulk of the rocks are made of volcanic ingredients, even the fine horn- 
stones and slates being made of volcanic dust, interleaved with tuffs and 
breccias. When the lower part of the Maplewell series is traced round to the 
north-west it becomes coarser, and eventually passes into a mass of very coarse 
agglomerates in which the succession is not easy to unravel, while it is much 
confused by faulting and the intrusion of igneous rocks, possibly also by the out- 
flow of lava. 
Bardon Hill presents exceptional difficulties. While the chief rocks are like 
those of Grace Dieu, Cademan, and Whitwick, it lies altogether out of the line of 
these rocks, and must owe its position to faulting. The agglomerates are also 
associated with a mass of porphyroid like that which occurs in a normal position 
at Peldar Tor and High Sharpley. At Bardon this rock appears to be intrusive 
into the agglomerates, and a similar explanation may have to be adopted for 
Sharpley, Peldar, and Ratchet. Many difficulties would still have to be met, not 
the least of which is the occurrence of boulders of Peldar rock in some of the 
agglomerates. A possible explanation of this is found at High Sharpley, where 
porphyroid, which is now acknowledged to be either an intrusion or a lava, is 
nodular in structure; it has been subsequently sheared so as to put on the aspect 
of an agglomerate. 
The porphyroid would appear to have been the first rock intruded before much 
movement had taken place in the rocks; it is sheared, cleaved, and crushed along 
the N.W. and 8.F. lines. 
