XXVII. Notice of some peculiarities observed in the Gravel of 

 Litcbfeld. 



By A. AIKIN, Esq. 



MEMBER OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



M.CUETAKY TO THE SOCIETY FOR THE ENCduKAriEMEWT OF AKTS, MANCPACT UKES, 

 AND COMMERCE. 



[Head 15th March, 1816.] 



A. HE red sand or gravel (for it may be called by either name) 

 which overspreads the country in the neighbourhood of Litchfield, 

 has presented to me some remarkable appearances ; a short notice 

 of which may perhaps without impropriety be offered to the Geo- 

 logical Society. 



The principal ingredient in this alluvial mass is quartz, in small 

 roundish grains, mixed rather copiously with scales of silvery mica, 

 and tinged of a brownish red colour by oxid of iron. In some 

 places no other substances than those just enumerated make their 

 appearance, and the soil is a loose incoherent driving sand. More 

 generally however the grains are slightly cemented together by a 

 little red clay, and rounded pebbles of various sizes and qualities 

 are interspersed. I am unacquainted with the thickness of this bed, 

 but excavations to the depth of about thirty feet have been formed 

 in it by the side of the road to Birmingham, about two miles from 

 Litchfield. At this place the pebbles are so abundant as to com- 

 pose a considerable proportion of the entire mass, and it is here that 



