Notices of Memoirs — Geology. 269 



g. — Kerr, C. M. An Excursion of Mr. Wilson's Geological Class to 



Mount SorrelL Bep, Rugby School Nat. Hist. Soc. for 1873, 



pp. 7-9. [1874.] 



The soil produced by the decomposition of the syenite was 



noticed to be thick, and there is also Glacial Drift. Some of the 



sections are briefly noticed. W. W. 



4. — Wilson, J. M, The Rugby Drift Bep. Bugby School Nat. Hist. 

 Soc. for 1873, pp. 10-13. [1874.] 

 The cutting on the London and North-Western Railway between 

 the Station and Clifton-road showed Drift over Lias, the former con- 

 sisting, in ascending order, of a foot of clay full of chalk-pebbles ; 

 three to five feet of clay with little chalk ; a sandier clay with 

 pebbles of quartzite and of chalk ; and at top sand and gravel. 

 The author then enters into the question of the glacial origin of the 

 beds, and the direction from which the materials must have come, 

 and concludes that all the drift is the result of one process, while 

 the land was sinking, the materials being derived at first from the 

 neighbourhood, and then fi'om greater distances. W. W. 



5. — Mann, E. Geological Expedition to Atherstone and Nuneaton. 

 Bep. Bugby School Nat. Hist. Soc. for 1873, pp. 19-22. [1874.] 

 Notices sections of Millstone Grit, with intruded greenstone. 



W.W. 



6. — Oldham, Dr. Coal Fields of British India. Bep. Bugby School 

 Nat. Hist. Soc. for 1873, pp. 45-54. 



The lowest formation in India is gneiss, with trap-dykes of great 

 length. This is succeeded by the schistose and quartzitic Kuddapa 

 rocks, above which an unconformity occurs, and the overlying rocks 

 have various local names. Above these comes the Vindhyan series 

 (sandstones with limestones and clays), of great thickness and area, 

 probably of "Old Red" age, and of freshwater or estuarine origin. 

 There is then another unconformity, and the succeeding thick series 

 of sandstones and shales is marked by the occurrence of terrestrial 

 plants. The lowest part of this "plant-bearing series" is the Talcheer 

 beds, consisting of fine silt with large blocks of rocks from distant 

 localities, which have been transported by ice, as some show glacial 

 polishing and scratching. To the Talcheer beds succeed the Damuda 

 beds (10,000 feet thick), which contain all the productive coal, and 

 consist of ironstone-shales, sandstones, and coals, the last varying 

 up to thirty-five feet in thickness. Westward the coal-bearing rocks 

 change in character, some divisions dying out, and the coal being 

 concentrated in a few thick beds. 



The coal-fields are in basins, largely owing to original limitations 

 of deposit, and not merely to denudation. They are in groups 

 related to the great drainage courses, which seem to have been 

 marked out at the time of the deposit of the coal-bearing beds. All 

 the coals consist of fine layers of vegetable matter and silt, and are 

 less mineralized than most English coals ; their age has been 

 wrongly given as Oolitic and Carboniferous (plants being the only 



