472 Notices of Memoirs — Fossiliferous Tufa at Launde. 



pegmatite remains of much the same composition, but there is a con- 

 siderable amount of schorl present in the southern area that is distinctly- 

 rare in the northern. 



There is considerable variation in the amount of foliation shown 

 by these intrusions. In the moderate-sized or larger ones the centre is 

 usually unfoliated, or but slightly so ; towards the margins the foliation 

 is more marked. The pegmatite fringe is rarely foliated if it occurs 

 as veins or dykes ; but it usually is more or less foliated if in thin 

 sills. The foliation over most of the area is protoplastic ; post- 

 consolidation crushing is rare. Indeed, it is only well seen in one case, 

 where the granite has reached the present surface far south of the 

 main series of intrusions, and within a lower temperature zone. ThL^ 

 intrusion is cut open by a branch of the Cowie Water, close to the 

 Stonehaven Road from Banchory. 



XI. — On a Fossiliferous Tufa occurring beneath Chalky Bouldek- 

 CLAY AT Launde, Leicestershire.^ By A. E. Horwood. 



IN the Report on Erratic Blocks of the British Isles, presented at the 

 Winnipeg Meeting, 1909 (Report B.A., 1909, p. 176), I mentioned 

 the occurrence of a large boulder of tufa found by the side of a stream., 

 the River Chater, at Launde, Leicestershire. At the time I had no 

 doubt the rock was an erratic. 



Since then Mr. A. J. S. Cannon has brought me a specimen of the 

 same rock containing land-shells, which he informed me he had found 

 in situ in the same locality. Recognizing the importance of this 

 discovery I accompanied him later to examine the section, with the 

 result that this rock was found in two different places a quarter of 

 a mile apart. 



At the first point a section is exposed in the stream-side as follows : — 



ft. in. 



1. Soil 6 



2. Chalky Boulder-clay, sand and gravel, with Jurassic 



fossils c. 2 



3. Calcareous tufa, with plants and land-shells, also 



Pisidium, Entomostraca 6 



4. Peat, with plant-remains and shells .... 1 



5. Tufa, similar to 3 6 



6. Inclined margaritatus shales (Middle Lias) . . 3 



7 6 



The disturbed character of the basal beds has no connexion with 

 beds 1 to 5, which are clearly undisturbed, and have not been inverted 

 or thrown out of position since they were deposited. 



The importance of this section is evident, for with the exception of 

 a deposit containing plants. Annelids, Crustacea, and MoUusca at 

 Aylestone in the Soar Valley in Holocene deposits, and a similar fauna 

 at Medbourne in the Welland Valley (not yet described), the Launde 

 section is the only ancient one so far discovered in Leicestershire. 



In the same district at Launde the tufa was found exposed in ditch- 

 bottoms and rabbit-holes under superficial deposits, some 2,000 feet 

 away. The nearest sections of the same or later age are in Rutland 

 at Apethorp, near Stamford, and at Casewick. I have been favoured 

 by Mr. A. S. Kennard with specimens of the shells collected by J. F. 

 Bentley at Stamford, and described by Professor T. R. Jones, and 

 there is a close similarity between such species as Helix rotundata, 

 Vitrea radiatula, and Carychium minimum, which are the dominant 

 shells at Launde. There are more than twenty species of land and 

 fresh-water shells, besides plants, that remain to be examined. No 

 mammalian remains have been found, nor evidence of the activity of 

 man in this locality. 



^ Abstract of paper read before the British Association, Section C (Geology), 

 Dundee, September, 1912. 



