Vol.  49.] 
ANNIVERSARY  ADDRESS  OR  THE  PRESIDENT. 
139 
almost  unbroken  stratigraphical  succession  from  the  Upper  Coal- 
measures,  including  tbe  /SpiVorfo’s-limestone,  into  the  Permian. 
This  difference  in  the  amount  of  unconformity  is  best  explained,  he 
thinks,  by  the  fact  that  the  Leicestershire  Coal-field,  where  the 
greatest  stratigraphical  break  takes  place,  is  almost  directly  in  the 
line  of  the  Pennine-Charnwood  axis,  where  the  post-Carboniferous, 
yet  pre-Permian,  movements  were  at  a  maximum.  Although  not 
absolutely  prepared  to  maintain  the  lacustrine  origin  of  the  breccia, 
the  Author  considered  that  it  was  practically  the  re-arranged  talus 
and  ‘screes’  from  the  harder  parts — both  of  the  older  and  newer 
Palaeozoic  rocks — which  now  form  the  brecciated  beds  in  the  Leices¬ 
tershire  Permians,  and  which  he  could  no  longer  regard  as  merely 
the  base  of  the  Trias. 
He  was  quite  prepared  to  admit  that  the  eastward  overlap  by 
higher  beds  of  the  Trias  is  not  of  itself  absolute  proof  of  the  ex¬ 
istence  of  a  stratigraphical  break,  amounting  to  an  unconformity, 
between  the  brecciated  series  and  the  Trias.  There  is  nothing 
improbable  in  the  view  that  the  breccias  might  belong  to  the  base 
of  the  Trias,  representing  marginal  deposits  which  swept  up  the 
sides  of  the  gradually  submerged  land,  just  as  is  the  case  with  the 
Keuper  breccias  at  Thringstone,  on  the  borders  of  Charnwood 
Forest ;  these  are  composed  of  angular  fragments  derived  from  the 
adjacent  Forest  rocks.  But  the  evidence  of  denudation  prior  to 
the  deposition  of  the  Bunter,  coupled  with  the  lithological  character 
of  the  beds  and  other  considerations,  appears  to  have  convinced 
Air.  Brown  that  the  brecciated  series  described  in  his  paper  must 
be  of  Permian  age.  He  also  notes  that  when  a  bed  of  breccia  is 
traced  for  a  short  distance  horizontally  it  is  never  found  to  be  very 
persistent,  but  dovetails  into  sandy  and  marly  beds,  just  as  do 
many  of  the  beds  of  breccia  ‘  in  the  fine  sections  at  the  base  of  the 
Trias  on  the  south  coast  of  Devonshire.’  We  are  naturally  led  to  ask 
the  question — If  these  Leicestershire  beds  are  of  Permian  age,  why 
not  the  fine  sections  ‘  at  the  base  of  the  Trias  ’  on  the  south  coast 
of  Devon  ? 
Estuary  of  the  Tees . — Mr.  Wilson’s  paper  on  the  Durham  Salt 
district,  recently  supplemented  by  a  note  from  Air.  Tate,  draws 
attention  to  a  curious  piece  of  Permo-Triassic  Geology  which 
would  have  remained  unknown,  because  unseen,  but  for  borings  in 
search  of  salt.  These  were  limited  when  Mr.  Wilson’s  paper  was 
read,  but  Mr.  Tate  informed  us  last  summer  that  at  least  sixty 
borings  had  been  put  down,  so  that  the  extent  of  the  basin  has 
been  pretty  well  defined  towards  the  west  and  north,  but  is  as  yet 
