A. R. Horiuood — Upper Trias of Leicestershire. 121 



Professor "Watts, who described the wind-polished rocks at 

 Hawcliff Hill, not now visible, has remarked that where the Eed 

 Marl forms a junction with the isolated bosses of granite the sides 

 are very precipitous, showing that they formed "peaks and nearly 

 vertical cliffs in the Triassic sea ". Wells sunk in the Keuper close 

 to the granite go down to a depth of 100 feet. 



At Nunckley Hill the Keuper Marl is covered by Boulder-clay, 

 and on the west side it abuts against the granite, large blocks lying 

 in the Red Marl " as if they had fallen from a cliff duiing its 

 deposition". The viaduct is built upon Red Marl lying against the 

 granite. In the valley west of Quorndon the Great Central Railway 

 is in Red Marl up to Rusheyfields Lane. There is a sandstone in 

 the Red Marl at Buddon Wood full of drusy cavities, which is 

 probably the Dane Hill Sandstone, Here also the edge of the 

 granite is very steep where the Red Marl abuts against it. 



Between District (1) and Loughborough the Red Marl is much 

 covered by drift. At Loughborough Lane there is a scree at the 

 base of the Red Marl overlying the older rocks. 



In the Swithland Slate Quarries, as noted by Jukes, the Red Marl 

 rests horizontally on the upturned edges of the slates, and the 

 bedding of the Red Marl follows at the base the uneven surface of 

 the slates, ascending over the rising portions, and in the hollows 

 following the depressions. Harrison came to the correct solution 

 that this conformity of the marl with the irregularities of the floor 

 on which it lies is due to the natural manner in which deposits 

 repose on slopes and hollows. 



At Woodhouse Eaves Red Marl penetrates the valleys in the 

 Charnian rocks, lying in the hollows. As on the north and at Copt 

 Oak, a skerry or white sandstone probably representing a band low 

 in the marls forms a floor in the pits where the mail has been used 

 for brick-making, now disused. 



In a small cutting in Red Marls and green skerries pseudomorphs 

 of salt crystals occur at Beaumanor. At Quorn Station the Red 

 Marls to the south are very sandy, as nearer Leicester. 



George Maw, 1868, first noticed that "the Red Marls of Charnwood 

 Porest dip away in every direction from the high ground of the older 

 rocks towards the surrounding level plain. But I was much struck 

 with the fact that the direction and amount of inclination seemed to 

 be less related to the entire mass of the high ground than to its 

 details of contour. Another noticeable feature of Charnwood Forest 

 is the relation of the areal outline of the Red Marls to the surface 

 contour of the older rocks rising above them, long winding tongues 

 of the red beds running up into the ancient valleys of the high 

 ground, the contour of the exposed portions of which is entirely in 

 liarmony with that of the bottom of valleys buried beneath the 

 remnants of the later deposit". He remarks, further, on the 

 antiquity of the hill and valley system, the absence of marine 

 erosion, and the antiquity of the ancient lines of waterflow (pre- 

 Triassic). 



(To he continued in our April Number.) 



