539 
Otmrt% Rock of the Lie key Hill , Sec. 
These accumulations of pebbles, promiscuously heaped together, 
are composed of the wreck of rocks of the most distant ages, 
which exist in their native state only in distant quarters of the 
island ; flints from the chalk formation, accompanied by rounded 
masses of hard chalk and fragments of the different oolite rocks, 
seem however decidedly predominant in Leicestershire ; and next 
to these in quantity, are the granular quartz rock pebbles resembling 
those from the Lickey, with others of white quartz (apparently 
derived from veins) and dark coloured hard flinty-slatc. It would 
however be not difficult in many places, as for instance on the 
west of Market Harborough, and in the valley of Shipston on 
Stour, to form almost a complete geological series of English 
rocks from among these rounded fragments, which often occur in 
boulders of very considerable size. 
The immense quantities of fragments of chalk flints scattered in 
this gravel at such a distance from the present limits of the chalk, 
is a very observable circumstance, and seems decisively to indicate 
that this formation must once have occupied a much wider space 
than it does at present. Near Syrwell, six miles north-east of 
Northampton, on the oolite formation, are some fields as thickly 
strewed over with fragments of pure white chalk, as the surface of 
stony arable land is usually with the substance of the subjacent 
rock. Even as far as Derbyshire, chalk flints are commonly found 
dispersed over the surface of the country.* 
* In the Phil. Trans, for 1791, an account is given of a quarry of chalk having been 
worked in Rutlandshire at Ridlington. The writer of, it is evidently well acquainted 
with the character and general limits of the chalk formation throughout England ; and his 
account is so very precise and bears so many marks of accuracy (specifying that the chalk 
is not soft but hard like that of Baldock, with rows of flints lying in it which are shattered 
and not so black as those in the south of England,) that the extent of the chalk near this 
quarry must be considered a subject w orthy the examination of those geologists who may 
