74 REPORT— 1839. 



the eastern edge of the latter field. At Stockingford, near Nuneaton, 

 the " upper coal measures " make their appearance, containing a thin 

 freshwater limestone Math coal plants and traces of galena. 



The lower new red sandstone is but slightly represented in this 

 county, the magnesian limestone and conglomerates nowhere observed. 

 The northern and central portions of the county are occupied chiefly 

 by the variegated sandstone of great thickness, and the variegated marl 

 also fully developed in some localities, in others it is extremely reduced. 

 The surface generally is much covered by northern drift and local 

 gravel. There is great diflSculty in determining the precise limits be- 

 tween the variegated sandstone and variegated marl, from the absence 

 of the muschelkalk. A thin bed, not more than two or three feet in 

 thickness, of highly calcareous, extremely hard, almost crystalline, white 

 marl, but containing no organic remains, occurs at Garrison Hill on the 

 Birmingham and London railway, but which, from its very limited ex- 

 tent and the absence of the characteristic remains, does not perhaps 

 deserve the appellation of an humble representative of muschelkalk. In 

 the variegated sandstone at AUesley near Coventry a part of the trunk 

 of a large coniferous tree about two feet in diameter has been exposed, 

 and eight or ten feet removed. The structure of the wood is identical 

 with the driftwood which abounds in the gravel of the neighbourhood. 

 The only animal remains yet observed in this part of the new red sy- 

 stem is a broken jaw of a sauroid fish, containing fifteen teeth, found 

 near Coventry. A considerable thickness of light-coloured sandstone, 

 thick-bedded, with nodules of green marl occasionally interspersed, 

 occurs at Warwick and Leamington, and extends, with occasional in- 

 terruptions, to the north-east as far as Attleborough ; some beds are 

 very hard, containing much carbonate of lime. The saline springs of 

 Leamington are in this sandstone, and small portions of rock-salt have 

 been found in it. The sandstone is observed in some localities, as near 

 Leamington, to pass gradually into the variegated marl ; and it is as- 

 serted that it does not range uninterruptedly over large tracts, but oc- 

 curs in wedge-shaped masses, thinning out in the strike and dip into 

 the marls. The thickness of the variegated marl intervening between 

 the sandstone at Leamington and the lias is less than 100 feet. In the 

 variegated marl at Shrewley Common, about five miles west of War- 

 wick, is a thin-bedded sandstone, hard, calcareous, white, sometimes 

 veined and mottled with red, and has been exposed to the depth of 

 thirty feet, including the interbedded red and green marl. This stone, 

 which Mr. Murchison and Mr. Strickland consider is the true keuper 

 sandstone, is, like the Warwick sandstone, of local appearance, though of 

 frequent occurrence in the same parallel, and passes into the marl. 

 Footsteps of a Batrachian(?) reptile were discovered by Mr. Strickland 

 two years since in this stone. No organic remains have yet been found 

 in it excepting Posidonomya minuta, (a shell common to the keuper 

 and variegated sandstone,) and a few indistinct fragments of reptilian 

 bones. Ripple and worm marks are frequently observed. 



