22 A. R. H or wood— Upper Trias of Leicestershire. 



Croft, between Nuneaton and Hinckley to the south. It, however, 

 rises to considerable altitudes in the Charnwood region, filling the 

 ancient valleys, and at Eardon Hill fills fissures in the older rocks 

 at 880 feet in the Siberia quarry. At Leicester it is at levels of 

 100 feet O.D., and further Avest between Hinckley and Coalville 

 maintains a height of 500 O.D. 



The Upper Keuper Sandstone, again, in the same way as the 

 Lower Keuper Sandstone, makes a feature around Leicester, at 

 Ratcliffe and at Croft. So do beds lower down at Orton and 

 Kegworth. 



Tlie Tea-green Marls at the outcrop, which is never extensive, 

 form gently rising slopes up to the modified escarpment of the 

 Ehsetic beds, which present a broken outcrop along the eastern 

 boundary from Gotham to Glen Parva, forming a narrow band 

 contiguous to the Lower Lias tract east of the Soar Valley and 

 Rugby branch of the Midland Railway. The general trend of the 

 beds is to the south-east. Northwards the Trias is continuous into 

 Derbyshire, the Lower Keuper at Kegworth and Castle Donington 

 being faced by similar beds on the north side of the River Trent at 

 AVeston, and the Red ilarl stretches beyond the north and east banks 

 of the Trent to Nottingham and Newark. The Lower Keuper and 

 Red ]\[arl on the west are continuous with similar tracts in Warwick- 

 shire and Staffordshire (except where faulted down), which in part 

 form a covering mantle above continuous Coal-measure tracts except 

 where these have thinned out, and lie in shallow basins or are cut 

 out by subterranean ridges of igneous or Cambrian rocks. 



The Leicestershire Trias is developed by several rivers which cut 

 down to its lower beds in the west, the River Mease, south of 

 Measham, traversing Lower Keuper country, flowing into the River 

 Trent, the River Sence and its tributaries, rising near Bardon, flowing 

 through Red .Marl country into tlie River Anker, a tributary of the 

 River Tame. The River Soar, rising near Sharnford, flows east 

 towards the east boundary near Whetstone, then due north. The 

 Earl Shilton, Glenfield, and Thurcaston brooks flow east into the 

 River Soar, as consequents, south and east of tlie Charnian range, 

 and north of it the Long Whatton and Garendon brooks flow east 

 into the River Soar near Hathern and Stanford. Thus a radial 

 arrangement of drainage systems is interwoven with an earlier system 

 of strike and dip streams. With the exception of the older rocks 

 forming ridges or isolated hills and the valleys formed by these rivers, 

 the country, save wliere sandstones locally make escarpments, is 

 extremely uniform, presenting a marked contrast to East Leicester- 

 shire with the loftj' escarpments of the Lias and Oolites. 



Apart from the enormous denudation caused upon the east side by 

 the agency of ice in the Ice Age, there is no doubt that not only the 

 present but also an earlier peneplain existed, when Charnwood was 

 doubtless bridged over by Lias, and even later rocks now removed. 

 Unless such cover existed between Triassic and later times it is 

 difficult to iniiigine how so long a period, during Avhich they were 

 exposed to denudation, could have elapsed without complete removal 

 of the Trias in Central England. Moreover, in post-Carboniferous 



