UPPER TRIAS OR KEEPER OF ENGLAND. 
369 
TKIAS OF ENGLAND. 
Between the Lias and the Coal (or Carboniferous group) 
there is interposed, in the midland and western counties of 
England^ a great series of red loams, shales, and sandstones, 
to which the name of the “ 'New Red Sandstone formation” 
was first given, to distinguish it from other shales and sand¬ 
stones called the “ Old Red,” often identical in mineral char¬ 
acter, which lie immediately beneath the coal. The name 
of “ Red Marl ” has been incorrectly applied to the red clays 
of this formation, as before explained (p. 38), for they are re¬ 
markably free from calcareous matter. The absence, indeed, 
of carbonate of lime, as well as the scarcity of organic re¬ 
mains, together tvith the bright red color of most of the 
rocks of this group, causes a strong contrast between it and 
the Jurassic formations before described. 
The group in question is more fully developed in Germany 
than in England or France. It has been called the Trias by 
German writers, or the Triple Group, because it is separa¬ 
ble into three distinct formations, called the ‘‘Keuper,” the 
‘^Muschelkalk,” and the “ Bunter-sandstein.” Of these the 
middle division, or the Muschelkalk, is wholly wanting in 
England, and the uppermost (Keuper) and lowest (Bunter) 
members of the series are not rich in fossils. 
Upper Trias or Keuper. —In certain gray indurated marls 
belo.w the bone-bed Mr. Boyd Dawkins has found at Watchet, 
on the coast of Somersetshire, a molar tooth of Microlestes, 
enabling him to refer to the Trias strata formerly supposed 
to be Liassic. Mr. Charles Moore had previously discovered 
many teeth of mammalia of the same family near Frome, in 
Somersetshire, in the contents of a vertical fissure traversing 
a mass of carboniferous limestone. The top of this fissure 
must have communicated with the bed of the Triassic sea, 
and probably at a point not far from the ancient shore on 
which the small marsupials of that era abounded. 
This upper division of the Trias called the Keuper is of 
great thickness in the central counties of England, attaining, 
according to Mr. Hull’s estimate, no less than 3450 feet in 
Cheshire, and it covers a large extent of country between 
Lancashire and Devonshire. 
In Worcestershire and Warwickshire in sandstone belong¬ 
ing to the uppermost part of the Keuper the bivalve crusta¬ 
cean Estheria mimita occurs. The member of the English 
“ New Red” containing this shell, in those parts of England, 
is, according to Sir Roderick Murchison and Mr. Strickland, 
600 feet thick, and consists chiefly of red marl or slate, with 
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