LINCOLNSHIRE NATURALISTS AT TORKSEY. 



Rkv. EDWARD ADRIAN WOODRUFFE-PEACOCK, L.Th., F.L.S., F.G.S... .. 



Vicar of Cadney; Organising- and Botanical Secretary, Lincolnshire A' 'ai 'nralists' Union v 



The meeting- of the Lincolnshire Naturalists' Union at Torksey, 

 on the i ith of June 1901, was a distinct success. Forty members 

 foregathered, and the drive from the railway station to Dunham 

 Bridge through Laughterton, and back from North Clifton, in 

 Nottinghamshire, through Kettlethorpe to the starting-point 

 was everything that could be desired. From Torksey the 

 members took train to Leverton, in Nottinghamshire, where 

 the Rev. A. Thornley, the President, right royally entertained 

 them with high tea and a sight of his collections of insects. 



Mr. F. M. Burton, F.L.S., F.G.S., reported on the Geology 

 as follows : — The steep, picturesque cliff forming the east bank 

 of the river Trent, near the village and in the parish of Newton, 

 is a continuation of the 'Upper Keuper deposits' at Gains- 

 borough, which run southwards through Lea, Marton, and 

 Torksey. The Rhcetic beds, under which the Keuper dips, 

 while they are seen in conjunction at Lea, are, at Newton, 

 two miles off on the east, owing, probably, to greater surface 

 denudation in that quarter. 



In England, the twofold division of the Triassic or New Red 

 Sandstone — the 'Bunter' and 'Keuper' — (the third, or middle, 

 division — the ' Muschelkalk 1 — so developed on the Continent, 

 being absent) though distinctly visible in other parts of the 

 country where the Keuper occurs, is, in this neighbourhood, not 

 easily made out. This fact I pointed out in a paper at the 

 British Association Meeting at Sheffield in 1887 ; and those who 

 would study the question may do so by following the line from 

 Gainsborough to Retford, where the entire beds are gradually 

 unfolded to view, till the ' pebble beds' of the Permian crop out 

 at the latter place. 



There is evidently a great thinning -out of the Keuper 

 deposits throughout this area, for not only are the ' Upper 

 Mottled Sandstones ' wanting, but there is an absence of any 

 boundary line between the sandstones of the Bunter and the 

 red marls above. There is, however, a remarkable change in 

 the composition of the gypsum as the higher beds are reached, 

 Quoting from my paper, referred to above, ' from the base 

 of the Lower Keuper Sandstone, which rests directly on the 

 'pebble beds' at Retford to the Keuper Marls at Gainsborough, 



1902 April 1. 



