1856.] plant — upper keuper sandstone. 369 



June 4, 1856. 



Ernest P. Wilkins, Esq., was elected a Fellow. 



The following communications were read : — 



1. On the Upper* Keuper Sandstone (included in the New 

 Red Marls) and its Fossils at Leicester. By James 

 Plant, Esq. 



[Communicated by J. W. Salter, Esq., F.G.S.] 



Beds of Keuper sandstone were first ascertained to exist in this lo- 

 cality by my brother, Mr. John Plant, in 1849; they were then found 

 in the cuttings of a short branch line made to connect the Leicester 

 and Swanington Railway with the Midland Railway. 



At the time that seyeral short hills on the line were excavated, an 

 opportunity occurred for selecting specimens of the superficial casts 

 and markings, together with the cololitic remains of Annelida^ from 

 the thin shaly beds of grey marls and sandstones which were abun- 

 dantly exposed to view ; thus a large collection was got together, and 

 specimens were distributed to the museums of the metropolis and to 

 others in the country. A notice of their occurrence was also read at 

 the Meeting of the British Association in that year at Birmingham. 



The finishing of the railway debarred a satisfactory examination in 

 that direction ; but as the strike and dip of the beds had been ex- 

 posed in the cuttings, it was not difiicult to follow them along a low 

 and narrow ridge for about two miles in a north-east direction, and 

 one and a half mile to the west, until lost under a part of the town. 



It is from the excavations in the immediate vicinity, and under 

 the town itself, that additional knowledge of the beds forming the 

 Keuper has been gained ; while many interesting discoveries of their 

 organic contents, such as Crustaceans, Teeth, Bones, Plants, and a 

 Foot-mark, have been made in the strata traversed by well-shafts, 

 which have been recently sunk to a depth of 7^ feet. 



The development of the Keuper sandstone on the north and west 

 sides of the town varies from one mile to a mile and a quarter in 

 width at the surface ; the strata cropping out at intervals, — at the 

 Castle Mount, Danett's Hall, Dane Hill, and at several knolls on 

 both sides of the Braunstone Turnpike Road ; generally they are 

 hidden under clays and marls of the alluvium and drift. The dip of 

 the beds is to the east, at an average angle of 3°, and they soon dis- 



* I have reasons for concluding, from lithological characters and from the 

 position of the strata, that there are two distinct beds of Sandstone, an Upper and 

 Lower, included in the New Red Marls, and separated from each other by a con- 

 siderable thickness of red clay ; the lower bed lying at about the same distance 

 horizontally and vertically from the " water-stones," as the upper does from the 

 base of the Lias. I may probably have a further notice upon this point when my 

 examination is more matured. It is the upper sandstone alone that the present 

 notice describes. — July, 1856. J. P. 



