Vol. 68.] PALEONTOLOGY OF THE WARWICKSHIRE COALFIELD. 589 



Prof. Lapworth (82) was able to demonstrate, by the discovery 

 of fossils in tbem, that these rocks were really of Cambrian age. 

 Four years later, while mapping the boundary between the 

 Cambrian and the Carboniferous for the new edition of the 

 Geological Survey map. Sheet 63 S.W., Dr. Strahan (86) found 

 that the junction between these two formations was marked by 

 a bed of coarse pebbly sandstone, which forms, therefore, the base 

 of the Coal Measures. 



Until quite recently the Carboniferous rocks have attracted no 

 special attention, so that Mr. Howell's memoir on the Coalfield has 

 remained the standard paper on the Coal Measures of Warwick- 

 shire, and subsequent authors, such as Prof. Hull (Oo), Prof. Charles 

 Lapworth (98) & (05), and Mr. T. C. Cantrill (05), have followed 

 that work in their descriptions of the Coalfield. No other con- 

 tribution of general importance has since been published ; but there 

 are a few papers of local interest, to which reference will be made 

 in the following account. 



The references to the literature on the Warwickshire Coalfield 

 are collected in the Pibliography at the end of this paper. 



III. Steatigraphy. 



The Warwickshire Coalfield forms a roughly triangular tract 

 in the north-eastern part of the county, the towns of Coventry, 

 Nuneaton, and Tam worth being situated at the angles. The 

 surface-area of rocks of Carboniferous age, including the additions 

 necessitated by the present work, is about 60 square miles. But, 

 in describing the measures, it will be necessary to include a much 

 larger extent of country, particularly with regard to the under- 

 ground extension of the Coal Measures beneath the cover of 

 Permian and Triassic rocks which almost completely surrounds the 

 exposed coalfield. 



The whole of the district under consideration is contained 

 within parts of the following 1-inch maps of the Geological Survey 

 (Old Series):— Quarter-Sheets 62 N.E. & S.E. ; 54 N.E. ; 53 N.W.; 

 and 63 KW. & S.W. 



The general structure of the coalfield is that of a shallow basin 

 of Carboniferous rocks resting discordantly upon an irregular 

 floor or basement of Cambrian age ; on all sides it is faulted 

 against, or covered unconformably by, the succeeding Permian 

 and Triassic rocks. 



The dominant structural features are the two parallel anticlines 

 ranging north-west and south-east, which have ridged up the floor 

 of the coalfield both on the east and on the west of the district. 

 Not only has subsequent denudation removed the cover of Trias and 

 Permian, but, along the crests of these anticlines, even the Carbon- 

 iferous rocks have been stripped ofi", thus laying bare the Cambrian 

 and Archsean rocks which form the pre-Carboniferous floor. 



The main topographical features of the district are intimately 

 related to this geological structure. Three distinct types of scenery 

 can be distinguished. The most striking physical feature is caused 

 by the broken anticline of hard Cambrian rocks forming the abrupt 



