lxxxiv PKOCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [May IOOO, 



Beyond the district to which I specially allude, Coal Measures 

 have been found deep underground in the Jurassic district at Burford 

 in Oxfordshire. At and near Northampton, Carboniferous Lime- 

 stone was found in the town next beneath beds of doubtful age 

 at 527 feet below Ordnance-datum ; while at Gayton the same 

 formation, thinly covered by Trias, comes up to 417 feet below O.D., 

 being soon itself underlain by beds that may belong to the Old Red 

 Sandstone ; and at Orton a quartz-felsite was found only 341 feet 

 below 0. D. Of the bottom-rock in the Bletchley boring, farther 

 south, one cannot speak with certainty. 



Putting the Harwich boring aside, the first proof of the existence 

 of Carboniferous rocks in South-eastern England was furnished by 

 the trial-boring near Dover, which has passed through more than 

 1000 feet of Coal Measures. The Eopersole boring has lately 

 reached the same formation, and these two are the only decided 

 evidence of Carboniferous rocks that we possess. 



At Brabourne the boring ends in a dark grey rock, with a dip of 

 60° : what it may be is unrevealed. Mr. Etheridge simply says * not 

 Carboniferous,' Prof. Boyd Dawkins takes it to be Devonian, while I 

 feel inclined to allow it to be anything from Carboniferous to Silurian ; 

 but I have seen so little of it that this opinion is of small value. 



As in the West of England the Dolomitic Conglomerate occurs 

 fringing an outcrop of Carboniferous Limestone, so may we expect 

 it to do in the East, as Prof. Boyd Dawkins has suggested ; but on 

 what side of Brabourne that is likely to happen is not certain. In 

 this particular again the boring there is of high interest. That at 

 Ottinge, being practically midway between this and Eopersole, 

 would be likely to yield information of importance, and I agree 

 with Prof. Boyd Dawkins in regretting that it has been given up 

 without passing through the Jurassic beds. 



Descending in the geological scale, we at the same time have proof 

 of still older rocks and of the absence of Carboniferous rocks at 

 various places north of the Thames — and, if we allow that the 

 doubtful red rocks are more likely to be of Old Eed than of New 

 Eed age, in others south of the Thames also. There is no need to 

 deal in detail with these older rocks, as most of them have been 

 discussed at length in publications with which you are familiar,, 

 while the oldest (apparently) will have to be noticed in some paper 

 to come. 



Eocks of undoubted Devonian age have been found in two places 

 only, in London (at Meux's) and at Cheshunt ; while undoubted 



