68 FOSSILIFEROUS HEMATITE NODULES IN LEICESTERSHIRE. 
from the Permian breccia, does not prove that this change 
was effected during the Permian era; they might possibly 
have been converted into haematite in coal measure times, 
or during the continuance of one or more of the secondary 
periods—in fact, the gradual replacement may have gone on 
ever since the deposition of the breccias until these beds 
were denuded, and their contents scattered over the country. 
We shall be better enabled to fix the age or rather the beds 
in which this metamorphism took place, when we consider 
that the agate or peculiar concretionary markings are not 
solely confined to the fragments of haematite, but that they 
show themselves on the surface, within, and in joints of 
other pebbles and fragments of rocks of older date than 
the coal measures. In all these cases these concretionary 
markings seem to be the result of segregation of ferric 
oxide, produced through the action of water. The liaematitic 
matter (red staining, coating, and replacing), not being 
wholly confined to the ironstone, but being present in greater 
or less quantity in other and older rock fragments, seems 
to show that the bulk of the ferric oxide present in each and 
all of these stones, both in and derived from the breccia of 
the locality, found its way into them during, or certainly 
not previous to, the Permian epoch. 
Now this iron must have come from below, or from above, 
or along with the water and sediment, by whose agency the 
breccias were deposited, and in a great measure formed. 
That it did not come from below is evident ; at all events I 
have no evidence whatever to support such a theory. That 
it came from above is by no means so uncertain. Water 
permeates downwards, and in so doing would part with its 
irony solution to rocks it passed over or through, thereby 
staining them. But although it is not perfectly clear that 
rocks of later date, containing iron that could be, or was, by 
water, dissolved out of and carried down into the Permians, 
ever existed all over the breccias containing the haematite, 
a study of the geology of the district leads to the conclusion 
that they did once overlie the whole of the breccias. These 
newer rocks are the Triassic series, whose well-known red 
colour is due to oxide of iron. Numbers of instances occur 
in this country of coal measures so thoroughly altered in 
colour by staining from superimposed Permian or Triassic 
strata as sometimes to puzzle greatly mining men and even 
geologists. In considering, then, whether the iron origi¬ 
nated along with the breccia and was not derived from the 
Trias, we must look for Permians of the same red-stained 
character, which we can show were never at any time buried 
