ESTHERIA MINUTA. 



C5 



Bunter Division. 



Thickness, / 



1900 or 2000 feet. 



' 1. Upper mottled sandstone. Soft, fine-grained, variegated sandstone, without 



pebbles : 700 feet. No fossils. 

 Conglomerate-beds. Red pebbly sandstone, with veins of protoxide of iron 



and oxide of manganese : 700 feet. Obscure impressions of drifted Plants, 

 Lower mottled sandstone. Soft variegated sandstone : 500 feet. No 



fossils. 



In consequence of the south-easterly thinning out of the Triassic group, 1 all the 

 divisions of the above table, as they occur in Cheshire, become reduced in thickness ; and 

 some are entirely absent in Warwickshire, as will be seen by the following synoptical 

 comparison, kindly supplied by Mr. E. Hull. 



Keuper. < 



Bunter. 



Cheshire. 



Red marl, including the Upper 



Keuper sandstone 2 



Lower Keuper sandstone 



Upper mottled sandstone 



Conglomerate-beds 



above 



Feet. 



3000 

 450 

 700 

 700 

 500 





West 

 Warwickshire. 



Feet. 

 ... 600 



East 

 Warwickshire 



Feet. 

 .... 450 





... 200 



.... 150 





... 400 ] 







... 400 \ 



(Absent.) 



Lower mottled sandstone 





... 100 ) 





(nearly) 









5350 



1700 (nearly) 



600 (nearly) 



Habitat of Esther ia minuta. — In England there are no marine organisms (fishes being 

 excluded as doubtful witnesses) accompanying the Est/ieria of the Keuper ; and the latter 

 might have been at once regarded as of equally freshwater habits with their recent con- 

 geners, were it not that the salt condition of the waters depositing much of the Keuper 

 sandstones and shales is proved by the masses of rock-salt and by the casts of the 

 cubical crystals of salt occurring abundantly in the same beds all over the country of the. 



beds of the red marl in Cbeshire and the Midland counties. It is desirable that we should know wBether 

 the salt-crystals and the Estherice occur in the same or in different layers in this district. Salt-pseudo- 

 rnorphs are described by Messrs. Strickland, Ormerod, and Smyth, in the ' Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., : 

 vol. ix, pp. 5 and 187. 



. For special information respect ; ng the salt-beds at Northwich, &c., see papers by Messrs. Binney and 

 Ormerod, ' Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc.,' vol. ii and vol. iv. For remarks on the unconformability of the 

 Keuper to the Bunter, see Mr. Hull's paper in the 'Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc.,' vol. xvi, p. 76 ; and for this 

 and other points belonging to the character and distribution of the Triassic beds see the ' Memoirs Geol 

 Survey ' (Explanations of the Maps and Sections). 



1 See 'Quart. Journ. Geol.,' vol. xvi, p. 63, &c. 



2 "With regard to the term ' Upper Keuper Sandstone,' " says Mr. E. Hull, " I think that it can only 

 be retained as applicable to the midland counties. In the northern counties this rock is not confined to one 

 definite zone in the red marl, but is distributed in thin layers throughout nearly the whole subdivision 

 While, therefore, in Worcestershire, Warwickshire, and Leicestershire (as shown by Strickland, Murchison, 

 Brodie, &c), we may divide the red marl into three portions, the central of which is the ' Upper Keuper 

 Sandstone,' in Notts, Cheshire, and Salop, no such divisions are possible, as the whole is essentially 

 one group." 



9 



