514 A. IRVING ON SOME RECENT SECTIONS NEAR NOTTINGHAM. 



Measures. Yet, strange to say, in a later edition of the same map 

 (1867), the Rotherham Rock is coloured as Lower Permian. Of 

 course, if this were rightly so named, there would be no great diffi- 

 culty in pointing to an instance of close stratigraphical relationship 

 between the Permians and the Coal Measures. But will it hold ? 

 Meanwhile, the anomaly which has been referred to is puzzling to 

 students, and tends to destroy their confidence in those whom they 

 ought to be able to look upon as authoritative guides in these matters ; 

 and it is to be hoped that another edition of the map may soon ap- 

 pear, by which the doubt may be removed. There will be much 

 good work to be done in the district in the next few years, on ac- 

 count of the rapid development of the coal-field and the local exten- 

 sion of railways. As the railway on which the section above 

 referred to is found proceeds eastward it exposes good sections of 

 the Bunter and Keuper. Between the river Leen and the turnpike 

 road which leads from Nottingham to Mansfield, the cuttings are 

 not deep, and, for a great part of the w r ay, the rock exposed consists 

 of the usual red and mottled soft sandstones of the Lower Bunter. 

 East of the road just mentioned the Pebble-beds of the Middle 

 Bunter are well shown. They partake very much of the nature of 

 those which compose the scarped rock on which Nottingham Castle 

 stands, being massively bedded, of varying hardness (though 

 throughout much harder than the Lower Bunter), whitish, dis- 

 tinctly jointed, the more compact beds forming a true conglomerate 

 with sparsely scattered pebbles, and occasionally loose layers of 

 pebbles between them. Frequent alternations in the forco of the 

 currents in the shallow arm of the sea in which these materials 

 were deposited are recorded by the above facts, and by the general 

 prevalence of false -bedding. The last-named character is even more 

 prevalent in the higher strata of the Bunter which are exposed 

 to the east. The characteristic pebble-beds of the Middle Bunter 

 disappear; and in their place one finds a series of thinly laminated, 

 micaceous, whitish, false-bedded sandstones, destitute of pebbles, 

 which may perhaps be regarded as representatives of the " Upper 

 Mottled Sandstones " of the Cheshire area, described by Prof. Hull *. 

 The junction of the Bunter with the Keuper is not exposed, as it 

 lies in one of the numerous minor valleys of erosion so common in 

 this district. The exposures of the Keuper strata are extensive and 

 interesting, and include almost the whole range (with the exception 

 of a few feet at the base) of the " Waterstones," together with some 

 twenty or thirty feet of red marls above them, which may mark the 

 passage into the Upper Keuper ; but the greater part of the latter 

 has, at any rate, been long ago removed by denudation from above. 

 For more than two miles, in the direction of the village of Gedling 

 (which lies in a lateral valley opening into the main valley of the 

 Trent) the Waterstones are exposed, with a gentle easterly dip. 

 There are no indications of faulting, nor contortions of the strata. 

 The beds are a series of alternating red shaly marls and sandstones, 



* Hull: 'Permian and Triassic Bocks of the Midland Counties,' one of the 

 Memoirs of the Geological Survey. 



