230 E. HILL AND T. G. BONNEY OK THE 



else noteworthy. Just west of it, a windmill stands on a low knoll 

 of the same rock, and some shallow pits have been oj)ened. About 200 

 yards south of the road is a much larger pit. One set of joint -planes 

 here rather dominates over the others, and the texture of the rock 

 is perhaps slightly coarser than in the last-named pits. Epidote is 

 common. Enclosures of a darker and more compact, and also of a 

 coarser, rock are not rare, resembling, at first sight, included 

 fragments (the latter are not unlike the syenite of Cliff Hill) ; but, 

 on the whole, we are disposed to regard them as nodes. North of 

 the road, a little farther on, is a still larger excavation, the Sope- 

 well quarry : the stone is much like the last, and very tough. Eel- 

 spar, epidote, and hornblende, coarsely crystallized together, some- 

 times occur, apparently as nodes, but the specimen shown to us was 

 not quite conclusive. 



In this pit was the remarkable face of polished rock photographed 

 by Mr. W. J. Harrison in his ' Geology of Leicestershire.' A portion 

 of it remained at the time of our visit ; the irregular surface forbids 

 the idea of glacial action. Some sand is in contact with the rock, 

 to which the polish may be due. This rearranged sandy deposit had 

 a general resemblance to a mid-glacial or post-glacial drift ; and 

 we were informed that a well at the cottages near (called Granite- 

 thorpe) had been sunk in Boulder Clay ; some of this was still lying 

 about the mouth. As this clay is decidedly at a lower level than 

 the sand, the latter is probably post-glacial. Two pits exist in 

 the north of the massif on the right of the road leading to Stony 

 Stanton from Sapcote ; the larger exhibits well-defined jointing, and 

 some thin, compact, contemporaneous veins, with occasional nodes 

 rather resembling the rock of Garendon. A rock of similar appear- 

 ance occurs in one part of the other pit. Just beyond this is a 

 shallow valley dividing the massif from that of Stony Stanton. 



The last exposure is at a place called Barrow Hill, about a mile 

 and a quarter S.E. of the village of Earl's Shilton. Notwithstand- 

 ing the name, the massif here is less conspicuous than usual, as it 

 forms merely a slight flattened boss amid generally low ground, so 

 that it may be convenient to notice that a windmill marks the 

 spot from a distance. Here are several rather shallow pits, into two 

 or three of which we entered. We were at once struck with a 

 marked difference in the general aspect of the stone, which is of 

 a dull grey colour, with a slight greenish tinge, faintly speckled with 

 pale dull pink. The exposed portion of the rock shows a slight 

 approach to a spheroidal structure, and its whole aspect reminded 

 one of us, who is familiar with the Warwickshire diorites, more of 

 them than any other rock in the Eorest had done. One pit exhi- 

 bits a redder variety, which presents a considerable resemblance to 

 the Stanton Rock. This seems to overlie, though irregularly, the 

 greyer rock ; it is separated from it by so sharp a line of demar- 

 cation, that at first sight it resembles an intrusive junction. No 

 other evidence of this could be found ; and examination of a slice 

 from the junction shows that the change is only a chemical one, due 

 to the presence of red peroxide of iron, to which, as is readily seen 



