English Formation?. 309 



Lastrseas, and others of smaller growth, while all forest 

 trees attain a goodly growth, and low down in the 

 flat, deer are grazing up to the gates of the old broad- 

 fronted timbered Hall. It is indeed a splendid 

 sight to stand on the edges of these scarped hills and 

 look across the great rolling plains of New Ked Sand- 

 stone below, bounded by Moel Famau and all the 

 mountains of North Wales that surround the beautiful 

 Vale of Clwyd ; or twenty miles further south, from the 

 abrupt cliff of Grinshill, to see the tall spires of Shrews- 

 bury backed by the renowned Caer Caradoc, the Wrekin, 

 the high line of the flat-topped Longmynd, and the 

 craggy Stiper Stones. 



The New Ked Marl passes insensibly into the Rhsetic 

 beds, which again pass insensibly into the Lower Lias. 

 In England there is therefore a gradation between the 

 New Ked Marl and the Lower Lias. 



The Lias series, Nos. 3, 4, 5, fig. 5, consists of 

 three belts of strata, running from Lyme Kegis on the 

 south-west, through the whole of England, to York- 

 shire on the north-east : viz. the Lower Lias clay and 

 Limestone, the Middle Lias or Marlstone strata, and 

 the Upper Lias clay. The unequal hardness of the 

 clays and limestones of the Liassic strata causes some 

 of its members to stand out in distinct minor escarp- 

 ments, often facing west and north-west. The Marl- 

 stone No. 4, forms the most prominent of these, and 

 overlooks the broad meadow-land of Lower Lias clay 

 that form much of the centre of England. 



Conformable to and resting upon the Lias are the 



various members of the Oolitic series (6 to 11, fig. 5). 1 



That portion termed the Inferior Oolite occupies the 



base, being succeeded by the Great or Bath Oolite, 



1 See also the < Column of Formations,' p. 30. 



