536 



THE WONDERS OF GEOLOGY. Lect. V. 



formable beds of the eastern and southern counties : the 

 underlying strata being thrown up at various and often 

 considerable angles, into lofty groups and chains of 

 mountains, which appear like so many islands amidst the 

 great plain of Red-marl (see section of the Mendips, Lign. 

 118). From Yorkshire to Nottingham they constitute a 

 tract of a somewhat uniform breadth of twelve miles. In 

 many parts of Nottinghamshire veins of gypsum are 

 abundant in the marls ; and a quartzose gravel, consolidated 

 into a breccia or conglomerate, covers a considerable area, 

 and forms the hill on which Nottingham Castle is situated. 

 Passing on to Derby and Leicester, the Red-marl spreads 

 into a vast plain, which occupies nearly the whole of 

 Cheshire, and the southern part of Lancashire and Shrop- 

 shire, and is the grand depository of rock-salt. The 

 Dudley coal-field is surrounded by Triassic strata, which 

 extend to Cheshire on the one hand, and to Leicestershire 

 and Yorkshire on the other.* The Magnesian limestone 

 range of the Permian in the south of England, forms a 

 natural terrace from 400 to 500 feet above the level of the 

 sea, its escarpment being to the west.f 



On the Continent this group, with some occasional 

 variations in the strata, may be traced opposite the Devon- 

 shire coast, skirting the transition rocks of Brittany, and 

 to the west underlying the Jura limestone, and containing 

 beds of gypsum and salt. It encircles the Vosges and the 

 German chain of the Black Forest in the south, forms a 

 zone on either side the Alps, and Hanks both sides of the 

 Carpathian mountains. It spreads over an extensive area 

 in central Germany, and prevails in the north and east of 

 European Russia ; the great extension of the Magnesian 



* See a brief notice of the Red-marl near Leicester in Medals of 

 Creation, vol. ii. p. 934. 

 f Professor Phillips. 



