116 A. R. Horwood — Upper Trias of Leicester sJ are. 



some extent the liorizontal appearance around these knolls of older 

 rock is partly illusory, but allowing!; for the angle of rest of beds lying 

 upon inclined slopes this radial dip is a natural feature of aqueous 

 deposits. In the Ansty Paper Mill boring (225 O.D.) 70 feet of 

 drift and 117 feet of Red Marl and gypsum, higher up in the series 

 than the last sections, was met with. 



Several trial holes on the Beaumont Leys estate penetrated the Red 

 Marl at high elevations. Where tiie Great Central Railway crosses 

 the valley to the east sections in Red Marl are to be seen, and west 

 of Leicester Abbey old pits in the field show 10-15 feet of sandy Red 

 Marl with gypsum bands. In the Ansty Lane the Red Marl is cut 

 through by the stream. A sandstone upon the same horizon as the 

 Dane Hill Beds is seen to the north at Birstall, but makes no marked 

 feature, and in this direction it is only where the River Soar luis 

 excavated its broad and deep valley that it reappears to any great 

 extent. 



Turning to the Red Marls in the Soar Valley just north of Leicester, 

 at the Star Brick- works at Thurmaston, 12-15 feet of Red Marl, 

 4 feet of which is spotted with green, much harder at the base, is 

 exposed. The basal marl is more calcareous and resembles that of 

 No. 13 at Barrow's pit (east of the Midland Railway) or No. 6 Vass's 

 pit, irregularly bedded and less nodular. In the last 4 feet the green 

 patches are irregularly distributed in more or less parallel bands 

 here and there, uniformly elsewhere. A loose piece of sandy marl 

 contained casts of Crustacean or Annelid tracks, perhaps glacially 

 derived from the Dane Hill Series. The nodular concretionary marl 

 at the base is full of cavities and honey-combed, and is more 

 impregnated with iron. The concretions are probably upon the same 

 horizon as a gypsum band, and represent a further stage of the loose 

 anastomosing veined patches, where there was insufficient sulphate 

 and more carbonate of lime, so that no gypsum was precipitated. At 

 the Thurmaston Pottery to the north a coarse-grained skerry crops 

 out here, which finds its equivalent at the Thurmaston brickyard. 

 But at the last locality it has thinned out, and is there just an 

 ordinary skerry. At Gipsy Lane a hard pink skerry occurs at the 

 base of the thick green band over the gypsum, but these are not 

 equivalents. The skerry is even coarser than the Dane Hill Sandstone, 

 which disappears east of the River Soar. It is intercalated in 

 Red Marl, which is used here for making tiles and pottery, the marl 

 readily lending itself to the lathe. 



In the Thurmaston Brick-pits excellent glacial sections are to be 

 seen over Red Marl and gypsum down to a depth of 27-40 feet. 

 To the south the Red Marl is very sandy and highly ferruginous, 

 easily breaking into sand. To the south again the anastomosing 

 fibrous gypsum takes the place of the compact gypsum seen in the 

 railway cutting, and there is about 2 feet below a layer of skerry. 

 At the north end the compact gypsum is in isolated masses, as often 

 happens at Gotham, with marl between. There is no appearance 

 of subsequent formation, and it must have been formed originally in 

 separate hollows or pans. The reticulating veins of gypsum at the 

 south end present a marked contrast to this. It is rather higher, 



