314 Preston: The Red Rocks Underlying Lincolnshire. 



they are known as ' Waterstones.' The water, however, from 

 these beds is often very variable in quahty from bed to bed when 

 tapped by deep borings, and is much more Hable to be heavily 

 charged with mineral salts than that from the Bunter beds 

 below. 



The group called the " Waterstones " form the basement 

 beds to the marls, and the whole of the strata from these beds 

 up to the Lias are together known as the Keuper formation. 

 Below the Keuper are the thick beds of red sandstones and 

 pebble beds. These are the Bunter beds, and in them it is 

 expected to find water. Thus, then, the boring when it is com- 

 pleted \\\\\ have passed through four distinct sheets of rock — the 

 Lower Lias, the Rh^tic Beds, the Keuper Marls, and the Bunter 

 Beds, g"iven in descending order. 



As already stated, several borings have proved the presence 

 of Triassic beds in Lincolnshire. The boring at Lincoln reached 

 the Keuper marls at a depth of 699 feet from the surface. This 

 gives a definite point for comparison with other sections where 

 the junction between Keuper and Rhcetic is known. At Grantham 

 a boring was put down at Messrs. Hornsby's works in 1875. The 

 depth reached was 853 feet, the boring rods passing through the 

 Rhcetic beds and just touching the Keuper marls. At Gains- 

 borough each of the two borings started in Keuper marls, and 

 a depth of 1,515 feet was reached without passing through the 

 Bunter. The South Carr boring, made in search of coal, is at 

 one of the most westerly points of the county border, about 

 seven miles to the north-west of Gainsborough. Commencing 

 in Keuper marls, it passed through 1,151 feet of Triassic beds, 

 and ultimately reached a depth of nearly 3,200 feet. This boring 

 is particularly interesting as being the only place in Lincolnshire 

 where the coal measures have been proved. The only other 

 boring in Lincolnshire of any importance relating to the Trias 

 is the one at Scunthorpe. There a very small section of Rhaetics 

 (about a foot) was met with below^ the alluvium and drift sand, 

 and altogether a depth of 1,767-J-feet was reached without getting 

 to the base of the Bunter. Besides these, there are deep borings 

 at Melton Mowbray, Owthorpe, Newark, South Scarle, Retford, 

 and Hatfield, all of which throw interesting light on the Lincoln- 

 shire Trias. 



The Lincoln boring has already developed thicker beds of 

 Liassic strata than were expected, and the fact that the Keuper 

 beds were met with at 679 feet below Ordnance datum is 

 very interesting when compared with Melton Mowbray and 



Naturalist, 



