and around the Warwickshire Coal-field. 553 



sandstones and clays was deposited at Oldbury and "Waste Hill, 

 while the bosses of diorite, etc., about Merevale remained still 

 uncovered. Similarly, at Dosthill the diorite seems to have formed 

 a small elevated area, bare of sediment, while conglomeratic sand- 

 stone was being deposited on its flanks. 



The Base of the Neio Bed Sandstone. 



From the south end of the Warwickshire Coal-field northwards 

 to Nuneaton, the New Eed Sandstone (Waterstones) rests uncon- 

 formably, first on Coal-measures, then on the Silurian shales and 

 diorites, the junction being exposed in an old quarry at Marston 

 Jabet, 1 and in Wash Lane, Nuneaton. In both cases soft red and 

 white sandstone, based by an inch or two of breccia, is seen resting 

 on diorite and shale. The same boundary-line is seen again in the 

 Midland Co.'s Quarry near Nuneaton Station (Midland Railway). 

 The beds, which are flaggy and resemble parts of the New Red 

 Marl (into which the Waterstones shade insensibly), are seen resting 

 on a very uneven floor composed in part of a sheet of igneous rock, 

 and in part of quartzite. The hollows in this floor are filled with 

 a breccia of large fragments of quartzite, sometimes a foot across, 

 while three or four feet from the bottom of the red beds there is seen 

 a conglomeratic band containing well-rounded pebbles of quartzite, 

 from -| to 1 inch in diameter. 



From this point northwards, however, the boundary of the Trias 

 is shown as a fault. The evidence of this is given by Mr. Howell 

 as follows. 2 The coals were wrought in the old workings near Poles- 

 worth Station up to a " Red Rock Fault " and there entirely cut off. 

 Near Dordon the coals were found to be so much faulted that the 

 workings were not proceeded with. Lastly, a fault falling into the 

 same line is seen in a quarry in Merevale Park (p. 50). The absence 

 of the Lower Keuper Sandstone (Waterstones) between Atherstone 

 and Nuneaton is also taken as evidence of a fault, and it may be 

 added that the nearly straight course taken by the boundary is in a 

 general way suggestive of a fault rather than of a natural super- 

 position. The existence of such a fault, however, has been questioned 

 by Mr. W. Andrews, 3 and borings made since the date of the original 

 survey of the ground have proved that the fault, if it exists, has not 

 the importance which might have been attributed to it. For it might 

 have been supposed that the Coal-measures would occur beneath the 

 Red Marl on the east side of the fault, having been thrown down 



1 Geology of the "Warwickshire Coal-field (Memoirs of the Geological Survey), 

 p. 39, fig. 4. 



2 Geology of the "Warwickshire Coal-field. 



3 In a paper read at the Annual Meeting of the Warwickshire Naturalists' and 

 Archaeologists' Field Club, 1884. A different view was taken by Prof. J. Phillips, 

 who refers to the " curious circumstance, that the Nuneaton coal-field terminates on 

 the north-eastern [side] by a magnificent line of fault. It is one of the grandest 

 lines of fault which can be seen anywhere, and along that line of fault there are the 

 effects of metamorphosis; there are considerable bursts of trap -rock " (Coal Com- 

 mission Report, 1871, vol. ii. p. 494). The trap-rock referred to appears to be the 

 Caldecote Volcanic Series, which is of course of vastly greater antiquity than the 

 fault. 



