PRECARBONIFEROUS ROCKS OP CHARNWOOD FOREST. 785 



sures are very few, and there is nothing like a continuous section. 

 Between Nanpanton and the Whittle Hills, and on Longcliff, there 

 are ash beds which may be on horizon No. ii. The Benscliff ash 

 bed is probably below the surface, unless the patch marked F, half 

 a mile south of Alderman's How, represents it. The rocks seen 

 there are all boulders ; but their materials are of a similar nature. 



The rocks of the north-eastern corner are almost entirely volcanic 

 agglomerates ; and these are naturally very inconstant and local. If 

 the Peldar-Tor beds correspond with those on Bardon Hill, they must 

 have thinned out to 40 feet in the latter, and so may very well have 

 disappeared elsewhere. The great agglomerates of the central part 

 of High Towers may die out in the White- Hill pebble beds. Besides, 

 it does not seem impossible that the vent from which they were 

 ejected may have been close at hand, and thus the whole deposit be 

 of an extremely local character, interrupting the continuity of the 

 strata. The seeming reappearance of familiar beds at Warren Hill and 

 Gracedieu Lane may possibly lend a slight support to this hypothesis. 



We may also notice that the interval between ii. and iii. is every- 

 where remarkably deficient in exposures. Even between Bradgate 

 and Benscliff there are wide extents without outcropping rocks ; and 

 these are but isolated on High Towers itself. 



The arrangement of the rocks of the north-west (the so-called 

 " Porphyry " Region) seems to be: — first, the indurated slates of 

 Whitwick Village, then the rocks of High Cadman, passing down 

 into those of Sharpley and Peldar Tor. The base of this series is 

 nowhere clearly seen ; but the beds on Green Hill probably repre- 

 sent it. Then come the beds by the Forest Rock Hotel, the slate 

 breccia at the crest of High Towers, the great agglomerates east of 

 that, and the thick ash beds round the Monastery, which seem to 

 overlie the ash beds of Timberwood Hill. 



Relations between the Igneous and Stratified Rocks. 



It will be observed that, if these correlations and groupings be 

 correct, the western side of the district has been subjected to great 

 dislocations, while the eastern is almost undisturbed. The quartzite 

 of Bradgate-Park-Stable Quarry is distant fully two miles from that 

 of Groby Pool and Steward's-Hay Spring. The strikes of the Mark- 

 field breccia, and the ash beds of Chitterman Hill and Barnby Wood, 

 seem to carry them nearly a mile from the corresponding lines of 

 High Towers and Timberwood Hill. The one disturbance seems 

 connected with the great mass of syenite which extends from Brad- 

 gate and Groby to Markfield, the other with the syenite hill of 

 Hammercliff. This gives rise to the suspicion that these syenites 

 may be intrusive ; and if so, the other igneous rocks of the forest 

 may be the same. To obtain evidence of this we have examined 

 the boundaries of every igneous patch in the district, and at length, 

 in the woods of Bradgate House, discovered a small quarry in which 

 the junction of the syenite and the slate has been exposed ; and its 

 intrusive character can be seen. This is just within the wood called, 



