480 Correspondence — H. B. Woodward. 



NEW LOCALITY FOR lEAIA. 



SiE, — Mr. J. W. Kirkby, of Pirnie Colliery, near Leven, Fife, has 

 kindly sent me a piece of ironstone, containing casts of two valves 

 (perhaps a pair) of Zeaia (spec, indet.), from the spoil of an old 

 ironstone pit, north of Wemyss, Fifeshire, and informs me that its 

 geological position is in the lower part of the Coal-measures. This, 

 then, is a new locality for the interesting genus Leaia. See G-eol. 

 Mag., Vol. VII. p. 219 ; and Vol. VIII. p. 98. 



September 22, 1874. T. KUPERT JoNES. 



EH^TIC BEDS NEAR NEWARK. 



SiE, — In the Geological Magazine for July, 1874 (p. 318), the 

 Eev. A. Irving points out the occurrence of the Ehsetic beds at 

 Newark, and makes a few remarks upon the White Lias, which is 

 not seen in situ, although what apjoear to be fragments of it are 

 found in the soil above.^ 



While engaged in the spring-time of last year in tracing out the 

 Ehgetic beds near Newark, I was (owing to the absence of sections) 

 for some time at a loss to fix the boundary line between these beds 

 and the Lower Lias above. The lower members of the Ehsetic beds, 

 as Mr. Irving describes them, are well shown in the plaster-pits 

 above Newark, and consist of the black paper-shales and greenish- 

 yellow marls, resting upon the red and mottled gypseous marls of 

 the Keuper. 



An examination in company with my colleague Mr. W. H. 

 Holloway, of the excellent section near Barrow-on-Soar, showed 

 that above the black shales there was a considerable thickness of 

 apparently unfossiliferous grey earthy marl, capped by a hard bed, 

 which I took to represent the upper limit of the Ehtetic formation. 

 Above it the ordinary Lower Lias limestones and clays come on. 



Subsequently Mr. Holloway and myself had a Lias quarry on the 

 Coddington road, near Newark, deepened, and at the base of the 

 Lower Lias series there was exposed a hard compact homogeneous 

 limestone, in texture not unlike the "Sun-bed" of the West of 

 England. This bed was much water- worn, and owing to the action 

 of the water sustained by clayey beds beneath it : such was its 

 power, indeed, that the bed was worn into fantastic shapes, well 

 justifying the quarrymen's term of "Flints." This bed of "Flints" 

 is no doubt homotaxeous with the hard bed in the Barrow section, 

 and the clayey beds beneath may similarly be identified with the 

 earthy marls of the same section, although in the Newark country 

 the rarity of pits and exposures and the great deposits of drift pre- 

 clude its being observed. 



The total thickness of the Ehastic beds at Newark, according to 

 measurements and estimates by Mr. Holloway and myself, is about; 

 50 feet. Further details on the subject, however, must be reserved' 

 for the Survey publications. 



Mount Pleasant, Newton Abbot, • HoKACE B. WoODWAED. 



22,rd September, 1874. 



1 Mr. F. M. Burton has noticed the similar occurrence of fragments of White 

 Lias in the section at Lea, near Gainsborough (Quart. Journ. GeoL Soc. 1867, p. 315). 



