18G LOWER OOLITIC ROCKS OF ENGLAND : 
FIG. 50. 
Section at the Spratton Ironstone-workings, near 
Brixworth, Northamptonshire. 
3. Boulder Clay 
"2. White sand, passing into 
2A. Brown sandstone and 
AT ,, sandy ironstone: with 
Northampton Sand^ imp i e istent seam of 
clay at base" - 12 to 14 
_1. Ironstone (6 to 8 ft. worked) 10 to 12 
Mr. Aveline has remarked that the beds in the area north-west 
of Northampton, (near E. and W. Haddon, Gruilsborough, Naseby, 
&c.), " do not lie flat on the tops of the hills, but cover them like 
a saddle, every ridge being an anticlinal axis, and every brook 
running on a synclinal axis."* He noticed the same feature at 
Hunsbury Hill. He however observes that the sands generally 
rest on an uneven surface of the Upper Lias clay, a section 
illustrating this, being exposed in a cutting of the railway near 
Brampton station. It is possible that the features may to some 
extent be due to the subterranean wearing away of the Lias clays 
by springs. 
Over the area to the north-west, there are sections, here and 
there, of yellow ferruginous sands and sandstone, and east of Long 
Buckby, a brickyard showed " sand with layers of good ironstone." 
About a mile north of Naseby, by the road leading to Clipston, a 
ferruginous rock with fossils was noticed by Mr. Aveline. Much 
of the ground is however covered with Drift. 
Mr Aveline states that east of Hazlebeech, thin flaggy oolitic 
strata, similar to beds at Duston, have been opened up; they were 
overlaid by ferruginous sands, and evidently formed part of the 
Northampton Beds. 
Nearer to Maidwell, however, we have the first indications (in 
passing north-eastwards from Towcester) of beds grouped with 
the Lincolnshire Limestone. Mr. Aveline describes the rock as 
hard, fine and compact, white, flaggy limestone, which is said to 
burn into " tolerable white lime,"t though it evidently contains a 
large proportion of silica. The only fossil found in it, so far as 
* Geol. parts of Northamptonshire and Warwickshire, pp. 8-10. 
f Geol. part of Northamptonshire, p. 10. 
