THE MIDDLE LIAS OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE. 
295 
be plentiful, but they are not so. The stone is so easily 
obtained where it is used, and dug to such an inconsiderable 
depth, that a quarry may be opened for a particular purpose, 
such as building a house or mending a private road, and then 
closed again and grassed over. So quarries appear and 
disappear with the exigencies of the district. 
The only other hard bed of the Middle Lias used for 
economic purposes is the bottom one, “L ” of typical section. 
Considerable quantities of this have been used in the south¬ 
western parts of the county for road making, for which 
purpose it is probably better adapted, as it there occurs, 
than the Rock-bed. It used to be largely quarried at Over- 
tliorpe. As was pointed out in the description of this bed 
given in Part I., it alters very much in a direction at right 
angles to the strike. Some of this bed was recently extracted 
in making headings in a well at Messrs. Phipps and Co.’s 
brewery at Northampton, and it was partly used for repairing a 
road. But although exceedingly hard, so much so as to require 
blasting in order to extract, it proved to be a very inferior 
stone for road making. Under ordinary atmospheric influ¬ 
ences and a small amount of traffic it was reduced to a 
powder. This, however, was not equal in quality to the 
stone from the same bed further west. Frost and the 
chemical changes set up in the green ferruginous matrix 
by weathering may probably be credited with the easy dis¬ 
integration of the stone. 
Ironstone.— The Middle Lias Rock-bed of the Midland 
Counties is the equivalent of the “ Pecten Seam,” or the 
“ Cleveland Main Seam ” of ironstone in Yorkshire, and 
hence the prevalence in it of a considerable quantity of iron 
is what might be expected. The stone is rich enough in 
iron in the south-western parts of Northamptonshire to 
have induced speculators to commence quarrying it for 
smelting purposes, but so far such works have not been 
successful, although in Oxfordshire to the south-west and 
Leicestershire to the north-east, such undertakings are yield¬ 
ing good results. 
Some years ago (1874) extensive preparations were made 
by a company, under the title of the “ Nell Bridge Iron Ore 
Company,” for working a bed of this ironstone in the parish 
of King’s Sutton, about four miles south of Banbury, by the 
side of the Great Western Railway. Very little came of the 
attempt, and the quarry has been untouched for some years. 
The circular issued by this company describes the ore as 
purely oolitic, yielding thirty per cent, of metallic iron, and 
thirty-three per cent, of lime, the proportion of lime being 
