PRECARBONIFEROUS ROCKS OP CHARNWOOD FOREST. 771 



At Chitterman Hill, in a field north of the lane, is a pile of loose 

 almost boulder-like rocks, which, however, are pretty certainly 

 in situ, and rest on beds of slate dipping S.S.W. The latter show 

 alternating bands of dark-bine flinty slate and grit, which weathers 

 white. The loose rocks are unstratified, showing their ashy texture 

 by their lumpy weathering, and consist of a brecciated mass of 

 curiously varied materials. The matrix is a green mottled ash ; and 

 there are a few fragments of a hard dark-blue slate ; but the bed is 

 to a great extent composed of fragments, often not very clearly 

 defined, of the pale-pinkish rock which occurs in BensclifF. It 

 is much more abundant here ; but we think the two deposits are 

 undoubtedly identical. That this rock is in situ is thus proved : — 

 Slates with a marked dip are exposed in a field south of the lane, 

 which, from their strike must overlie it ; and in Barnby Wood, at 

 the corner of the lanes, distant | mile, the coarse ash can be seen with 

 similar slates resting upon it. At the same time, as in BensclifT we 

 are disposed to think there are two beds of this nature, so here the 

 horizons need not be quite the same. The ridge of exposures extends 

 some way ; but we have not examined the whole of it. 



Our identifications are supported by the fact that the distance 

 across the strikes from the Markfield beds to these is the same 

 as that from Ulverscroft Mill to the first ash-bed of BensclifF. 



11. The rocks of Billa Barrow are fine-banded ashy grits or 

 slates. They show signs of compression ; and the strata curve, so 

 that one and the same bed can be followed from horizontality to a 

 dip of nearly 50°. An outcrop marked in the Survey Map near 

 this, by the high road, cannot now be seen. 



The Bice Bocks are a beautiful series of banded flinty slates, 

 without any trace of breccia, dipping very steeply, and not quite uni- 

 formly, as shown on the map. Much the same description applies to 

 the beds of Beggar's Nook, also a very fine exposure in an abandoned 

 quarry. The slate here has a slight conchoidal fracture, with very 

 sharp edges ; it is evidently highly altered. 



The rocks at Hilltop, the west end of the ridge of Bardon, well 

 seen in the back yard of the little inn, are pinkish slates and grits 

 much jointed and disturbed. The dip is nearly vertical, in a S.W. 

 direction ; but the rocks are evidently much disturbed. We shall 

 recur to them in connexion with Bardon. 



The rock at Copt Oak is exposed in a small pit by the church ; as 

 it is much decomposed, it is not easy to determine its nature. It 

 dips at about 45° to W.N.W. ; the cleavage, which is nearly vertical, 

 strikes W. 10° N. It has a very ashy aspect, and appears to contain 

 crystals of felspar, either broken or imperfectly developed, probably 

 the former. We do not notice quartz ; were it not for the absence 

 of this, it would bear some resemblance to the rocks of Peldar Tor, 

 hereafter to be described. It is also in their line of strike ; and 

 though equally in the line of strike of the Chitterman-Hill beds, we 

 shall show hereafter that there may have been a dislocation in this 

 neighbourhood ; so the latter may not correspond. 



The rock of Birchwood Plantation, coloured as greenstone on the 



