A. R. Horivood — Upper Trias of Leicestershire. 29 



railway cutting, wliere 2-3 feet of red and purple speckled 

 sandstones overlie red and purple marl with nodules of haematite. 

 East of these exposures the Red Marl forms a wide tract extending 

 northwards to the River Trent and on the east to the River Soar, 

 bounded on the south by the Loughborough line. 



Though there is little Drift in this area except south of Diseworth 

 and just north of Ashby the country is not very elevated. The 

 contour-lines range between 200 and 300 feet as a general rule. 

 Around Ashby the anticlinal of the coal-basin causes a slightly 

 higher elevation up to 450 * feet. In spite of this there is little 

 variation in the general featizres of the Red Marl. Only a few 

 disjointed exposures of stronger features caused by sandstones are 

 revealed. As elsewhere in Leicestershire, the skerries exposed in 

 pits and similar sections do not as a rule form any feature, except 

 locally, as along the Midland Railway between Kegworth and Hathern, 

 and on a smaller scale on the Great Central Railway near Loughborough. 

 This is due to the general absence of flexures (upon which remarks 

 are made later). Consequently, as observed by Mr. Fox-Wtrangways, 

 it has not been possible to trace the several dominant skerries. The 

 one cropping out on the Midland Railway is probably the second 

 band, which lies 200 feet below the Tea-green Marls. The sandstone 

 horizons traceable near the base of the formation belong to a series of 

 three, the first of which lies 50 feet above the waterstones. Tliat at 

 Diseworth occurs as an inlier. 



In the north-west of this area the Red Marl occurs as outliers 

 south-east of Melbourne southwards to Worthington, forming slight 

 eminences between the 200 and 300 contoui'-lines overlying the 

 inliers of Carboniferous Limestone at Ereedon Cloud and at Barrow 

 Hill and Osgathorpe, two or three feet of Red Marl with a limestone 

 breccia at the base irregularly bedded lying iinconformably upon the 

 limestone. About here are indications of the lowest skerry band. 



The same skerry may be traced to the north, where at Donington 

 Farm a bed of sandstone in the Red Marl can be followed northwards 

 to Donington Park, where just east of King's Newton it strikes 

 due west, and south of Weston it turns north and then thickens 

 considerably, and striking north-east it thins out again, following the 

 outcrop of the Red Marl in a sinuous course along the River Trent. 

 At King's Mills it turns back south-east as far as the south boundary 

 of the park, where it again, after a short distance, is to be traced 

 north-west till it turns again to the east, then north-west, and finally 

 can be followed in a south-east direction up to the Castle Donington 

 road. A small quarry was opened up for building-stone near the 

 gardens. Below this horizon the Lower Keuper Sandstone forms 

 a marked feature. There are thus two terraces flanking the Trent, 

 with plateau-like hills to the south. Eastward this sandstone 

 follows an easterly course, till at Lockingtou Grange, where it 

 dips to the south-west at 3°, it thickens out, forming a marked 

 feature to Broad Hill, south-west of Kegworth, where it thins out 

 again, and being lost in the Soar Valley is found to dip 5° due 

 west. At Kegworth it has been quarried for mending roads, and is 

 there 40 feet from the base of the Red Marl. In exposures in the 



