WOODRUFFE-PEACOCK : NATURALISTS AT GREAT COTES. 37 1 



Mr. J. H. Cooke, B.Sc, F.L.S., F.G.S., reported that the extensive 

 accumulations of Boulder Clay and Estuarine Warp that envelope 

 the country in the neighbourhood of Great Cotes, most of which, 

 at the time of the visit of the members of the Lincolnshire 

 Naturalists' Union, were covered with ripening crops, militated 

 considerably against the success of the geological section. Some 

 interesting work was, however, done in seeking for erratics and 

 in studying the problems which were offered in a small pit that 

 lies between Great Cotes and Healing. This pit is specially 

 noteworthy as being the only section in the neighbourhood where 

 the Boulder Clay may be seen in juxtaposition with and overlying 

 the shelly sands and gravels. It has been excavated in an inlier, 

 and it shews in section a layer of chalky Purple Boulder Clay of 

 about four feet in thickness overlying a series of thin seams of 

 gravel, sand, and carbonaceous matter. 



The predominant feature of the clay is the many fragments of 

 chalk which it contains, all of which are in a more or less advanced 

 state of decomposition ; but besides these, angular masses of flint, 

 some black, others piebald, due to the solution of portions of their 

 contained chalcedonic silica, and also small boulders of local and 

 of far-travelled rocks are by no means uncommon. Of these latter, 

 fragments of oolitic limestone, micaceous sandstone, mica schist, 



and red granite were noted. 



The shelly gravels with their intercalations of carbonised 

 vegetable matter exhibit very marked evidences of false-bedding, 

 and contain quantities of shell fragments having a distinct marine 

 facies. Mr. Cordeaux and the Geological Survey obtained 17 species 

 of marine shells from this pit. On the day of tb 

 fragments were obtained, and also entire shells of Cc 



many 



Mytilns 



\fytilus edulis is 



not recorded from this locality in the Survey Memoir. 



Of the boulders that were seen the most noteworthy was 

 a fine rounded mass of porphyritic granite that would probably 

 weigh nearly three-quarters of a ton. It lies near the gateway 

 leading to Mr. Cordeaux's grounds. It is not a local erratic, but 

 was dredged up from the Dogger Bank in the North Sea and was 

 brought to Great Cotes a few years ago. Between the village and 

 the station several isolated boulders were observed by the roadside, 

 e.g., schist, oolitic limestone, micaceous sandstone, and quartzite; 

 and about one hundred yards from the station is ft large heap of 

 foreign rocks that includes boulders of basalt, schist, porphyntic 

 granite, quartzite, grey granite, and limestones, all of which were at 



road pavement 



Dec 1S96. 



