1870. ] WILSON—-RUGBY SURFACE-DEPOSITS, 199 
At Lutterworth the sand and coarse gravel is 40 feet thick. 
At Harborough Magna the sand and gravel are 70 feet thick; and 
about a mile from the village one well was sunk 90 feet, through 
gravel, clay with pebbles, and, finally, sand. 
In the railway-cutting between Brownsover and Newbold, on the 
Rugby side of the canal, is sand mixed with loam containing flint, 
syenite, and various kinds of quartzite. Beyond the canal are stri- 
ated stones of various kinds, chalk and syenite in similar sand, 
which is there seen to rest on rudely stratified clay with chalk 
pebbles, below which are other deposits of sand. Near the canal 
here is a patch of re-formed Lias clay, with abundant blocks of 
striated Lias limestone, but no chalk. 
At Hasenhall the gravel is deep and very wet. 
At Newnham gravel is almost wanting. 
GENERAL SUMMARY OF THE SURFACE Deposits. 
Deposits on the high Lands. 
It appears, then, that on the Rugby plateau, and on the similar 
high lands in the neighbourhood, the Lias is generally, but not uni- 
versally, capped with three kinds of superficial deposits. These 
are— 
1. The flinty and quartzose drift. 
2. Sugary sand with grains of chalk. 
3. Clay with pebbles, principally of chalk, distinctly striated. 
Of these 2 and 3 are generally found together, and either may 
lie on the other; 1 lies over both, and is never found below either ; 
2 and 3 are never found in any thickness except where lying on 
the slopes of the hills, and they follow the steep slopes of the valleys 
with great pertinacity ; 1 is found principally on the high levels, 
thins out everywhere down the slopes, and never reaches the bottom 
of the valleys; 3 is similarly entirely wanting in the valleys, as 
far as at present ascertained; 2, or a modification of it,is found in 
one valley. 
Deposits in the Valleys. 
The valleys in this neighbourhood are of various widths, some- 
times widening out into broad plains, at others very narrow with 
steep slopes. There are two systems of valleys divided by the Rugby 
plateau—the valley of the upper Avon on the north, and that of the 
Leam on the south. The bottom of the valley is generally a narrow 
strip of alluvial soil, bordered by sand in some places, by drift in others, 
while, again, in other places all the surface-deposits are wanting. 
No wells or other excavations exist in the valleys; and I determined 
to make some borings with a view to ascertain the nature of the 
underlying strata. It might have been presumed that the valleys 
were excavated in the Lias clay, and that therefore just below a few 
feet of alluvial soil we should find the Lias. he result is startlingly 
different from what I expected. I have examined only the valley 
of Lowmorton in any detail. This is a lateral valley of the Avon. 
VOL, XXVI.—PART I. P 
