LOWER LIAS : MARKET HARBOROUGH. 167 
The bottom beds of the Lower Lias consist of blue-hearted 
limestones, from 1 foot 6 inches to 9 feet thick. The lowest bands, 
showing wavy banding and white earthy coating, contain much 
pyrites, and are considered by Mr. Montngti Browne to represent 
the " Four-foot bed " of Barrow-on-Soar. Lima gig ante a occurs, 
and Mr. II. E. Quiltei" records also Ammonites planorbis, Cidaris 
Edicardsi and other fossil?.* 
Beds belonging to the zone of Am. Bucklandi have been 
quarried between Wigston Magna and Kilhy, and large specimens 
of Lima gigantea have been obtained. Clayey beds and pyritic 
shales with nodules of limestone, belonging partly to the same 
zone, and partly to that of A. semicostatus, have been opened up 
in brickyards near Glen Magna and Fleckney.j At Flec-kney 
Ammonites sauzeanus and other fossils have been found. 
The overlying clays have been worked for brick-making, between 
Bruntingthorpe and Shearsby, at Kibworth Harcourt, Husbands 
Bosworth, Market Harborough, Little Bowden, Neville Holt, and 
Medbourn. 
Shelly limestone-bands are occasionally met with in the clays, 
bands that are of a similar character to the Banbury Marble. 
One of these bands at Husbands Bosworth yielded Belemnites^ 
Cardinia, Gryphcea, Lima, and Pcctcn ; but the specimens were 
not good enough for specific identification. 
Prof. .Tudd has also described hands of like character that were 
exposed at Staunton Wyville. They yielded Cardinia. attenuata 
and C. hybrida, and many other shells, including Belemnites 
clavatus, Hippopodium ponderosum, Gryphcea obliquata, Littorina 
imbricata, Pentacrinus, &c. He remarks that these bands of 
limestone are sufficient to produce, by their greater relative 
hardness and power of resisting denudation, a well-marked feature 
wherever the country is sufficiently free from Drift. Thus the 
ridge on which the village of Thorpe Langton is built, owes its 
existence to the presence of limestone-bands of the zone of 
Ammonites Jamcsoni. A deep ditch south of the village afforded 
an admirable exposure of these beds in the year 1867. and yielded 
Ammonites Valdani, Belemnites elongatus, Plicalula spinosa, Pecten 
cequivalvis, Modiola, Ostrea, and Pentacrinus (very abundant).J 
Prof. Judd mentions that the clays in the Neville-Holt brick- 
yard, are dark blue and pyritous, with a few septaria and ferru- 
ginous nodules ; they yielded Ammonites capricornus, A. Jtm- 
briatus, and Nucula. 
At Little Bowden brickyard, beds of grey micaceous shale and 
blue clay have been opened up to a depth of 25 feet, beneath 
Middle Lias shales. These lower beds belong to the zone of A. 
capricornus. 
* Rep. Leicester Lit. and Phil. Soc. 1885, p. 120 ; see also Gec.l. Mag. 1884, 
p. 415. 
j- Qnilter, Geol. Mag. 1886, p. 60; Midland Nat., vol. iv. p. 265. 
J Geology of Rutland (Mem. Geol. Survey, Sheet 64), pp. 62, 63. 
