MIDLAND UNION OF NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETIES. 
185 
ford Shales are grey and green in colour, and contain many bands 
of black shale. The lowest zones of this division yield examples of 
Agnostus ; the middle division affords Olenus ; and the upper beds 
are locally rich in Dictyonema. 
The Cambrian strata are cut by thick dykes of coarse intrusive 
diorite, which vary in thickness from a mere band to several 
hundreds of feet, and run through the district from end to end. 
The excursion included a visit (1) To the Diorite Quarry near 
Nuneaton Station, Midland Bailway, where a fine section of the 
intruded diorite and of the unconformably overlying Keuper is laid 
bare; (2) The large quarries of Hartshill quartzite to the west of 
Nuneaton Station ; (8) The sections of the Caldecote ashes, near 
Caldecote Windmill ; (4) The Stockingford Shales of Purley Park, 
near Atherstone; and (5) The Dictyonema beds of Merevale 
Abbey. 
Dor the first few miles after leaving New Street Station, there 
is but little of geological interest. The station itself is, in common 
with the centre of Birmingham, on the Keuper sandstone (Water- 
stone), and the south end of the tunnel marks about the line 
where these rocks are let down by a fault, giving place to the softer 
Keuper marl. For the first ten or twelve miles the railway 
traverses these marls, following the course of the Tame. Just 
after Wliitacre Junction, the fault is crossed, which brings the 
Permian rocks to the surface, and the character of the country 
changes in consequence. The line of the fault, which runs north 
and south, is evidenced by the rise in the ground along this line, 
owing to the harder character of the Permian rock. A few miles 
further south, at Maxstoke, where the fault runs through the harder 
Keuper sandstone, this contrast is less evident. From this point 
the line ascends through Permian strata along the valley of the 
Bourne, and at Arley Station there is a good section of a Calcareous 
Conglomerate. A few miles further on, the line enters a tunnel, 
and reaches its highest point, viz., 500 feet above sea level. It 
thence rapidly descends to the lower ground of the Nuneaton 
coal field. 
The Cambrian rocks of the Hartshill area next form the high 
August, 1898. 
