PRECARBONIFEROUS ROCKS OF CHARNWOOD FOREST. 781 



it like the isolated patch of slate by Copt-Oak church. Upon this 

 lies the first "good rock," so called by the quarry men, worked for 

 road-metal. It is greyish green, slightly mottled with paler colour, 

 and very hard. It appears to be a highly altered slate. Then comes 

 the second shaly bed, about six feet thick, and traceable along its 

 strike across the whole quarry. It is followed by more " good rock." 

 At the distance of about 30 yards from it, on the north side of the 

 quarry, is a considerable thickness of a rock somewhat ashy in its 

 matrix, containing crystals of felspar and grains of quartz generally 

 as large as peas, and in the upper part even larger. It much 

 resembles the rock of Peldar Tor. It occasionally shows signs of 

 brecciation, and in the lower part passes into a breccia containing 

 fragments of a pinkish felsitic rock in a matrix of good rock. It 

 appears to change its character very rapidly ; for at the same 

 horizon, at the opposite side of the quarry, the quartz granules 

 almost, if not quite, disappear, and the rock becomes less distinctly 

 porphyritic. The pink fragments may still be traced, but seem 

 rather less clearly defined. 



In the upper quarry, whose floor extends to the top of the face of 

 the lower quarry, there is on the left corner a breccia containing 

 fragments resembling those of the dark-purple porphyritic rock 

 already described, in a fine purplish matrix. The whole rock seems 

 to have been highly metamorphosed, as if it had been almost fused. 

 The rock just above it is also dark purple in colour, but schistose in 

 structure, and rather porphyritic. 



The representative of the quartz and felspar rock of the lower 

 quarry appears to be a breccia in the north-east corner, at the proper 

 distance from the shaly bed. The matrix contains felspar crystals, 

 though not very plentifully. The fragments consist of a pinkish fel- 

 site-like rock, mottled with epidote. The principal mass of "good 

 rock " worked in the upper quarry overlies this, and must be in- 

 cluded between it and the above-named purple breccia. This, how- 

 ever, we have not identified on the opposite side. The quarrymen 

 think that the " good rock " runs up the hill to the summit ; and the 

 strike of the strata shows that, if the " good rock " be a particular 

 bed, this is not very far wrong. 



Mounting the ridge of the hill, which here runs about N.E., we 

 find a considerable distance, probably more than 200 yards, inter- 

 vening before the next rocks, which, after that, are nearly con- 

 tinuous to the summit. Those first seen are thick beds of ash with 

 included fragments, some of considerable size, rather sparsely scat- 

 tered about. They have some resemblance to the beds at the right- 

 hand corner of the upper quarry, and might, so far as the trees 

 allowed us to see, be on its strike. The other succeeding rocks do 

 not in general differ very much from this, though some are of rather 

 finer grain. Usually they are coarse ashes (rather finer near the 

 cairn), indistinctly stratified, but, so far as can be ascertained, 

 dipping in the same direction as the beds in the quarry. Included 

 fragments can be detected at several points, especially near the 

 summer-house at the top. The summit is a long, narrow, nearly 



