79 ' 
CLAY-BALLS AND STRIATED PEBBLES, 
FROM BUNTER SANDSTONE, NOTTS. 
HENRY PRESTON, F.G.S. 
Grantham. 
(plates VII. AND VIII.). 
Connected with the Bestwood Blast Furnaces, near Notting- 
ham, there is a large sand-pit in the Pebble Beds of the Bunter 
Sandstone, which lies a little to the south-west of the Furnaces, 
and four miles north of Nottingham. 
The vertical section of the sand-rock measures about 50 
feet, and there are a few pebble bands scattered throughout 
the section. 
The principal pebble bed varies from twelve to eighteen 
inches in thickness and occurs nearly half way up ; but the 
rock is mainly a massive bed of yellowish cream coloured 
sand with occasional streaks and patches of light reddish 
brown. The colour of the sand-rock is due to thin pellicles 
of iron oxide surrounding the grains, which may readily be 
removed by boiling in acid. 
Scattered about on the floor of the pit are numbers of clay- 
balls which have been thrown out during the excavations. 
They are mostly lenticular in shape ; but some pieces are 
quite flattened out and others are disc-shaped. The surfaces 
of these balls are often studded all over with pebbles ; white, 
and liver-coloured quartzites, and such others as are found in 
the pebble bands of the pit. 
In the ‘ Geological Memoir for Newark and Nottingham, 
1908,’ page 37, mention is made of similar cakes and rolled 
lumps of clay among the quartzite pebbles of the Bunter 
pebble beds at Sneinton ; and they are also mentioned in the 
‘ Geological Memoir for Ollerton, 1910,’ page 35. 
In the Bestwood pit, some of the clay-balls occur in situ 
in the rock face, and they are generally in or near to the pebble 
bands. Occasionally the balls are found in the massive 
sand-rock well removed from any pebbles, when they are 
quite destitute of any adhering pebbles. 
The probable explanation of the origin of these clay-balls 
will be understood when we consider what is taking place to- 
day. Wherever a clay cliff exists around our Coast, and there 
are pebbles on the beach, it is quite common to find masses of 
clay of various sizes which have been broken from the cliff and 
rolled about by the wash of the tide until they become more or 
less rounded in shape ; and studded all over their surfaces are 
numbers of pebbles picked up from the shore. If the clay is 
rolled about on a simple sand-beach then the clay-balls are 
destitute of pebbles. 
We thus have a modern illustration of what occurs in the 
1914 Mir. 1. 
