THE SYENITES OF SOUTH LEICESTERSHIRE. 
7 
THE SYENITES OF SOUTH LEICESTERSHIRE. 
By W. Jerome Harrison, F.G-.S. 
The traveller going northwards from London passes over 
a great succession of soft and yielding strata. Sands, clays, 
and marls, alternating with beds of sandstone and limestone, 
bear evidence by their position, their character, and by 
the fossils they contain, that their place is comparatively high 
in the geological scale. The London Clay hills of Herts, the 
chalk of the North Downs, the oolitic, liassic, and tnassic 
limestones and clays of Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire, and 
South Leicestershire, all belong to either the Secondary or 
the Tertiary Systems of geologists. It is with some surprise 
then, that the student of science comes in South Leicester¬ 
shire upon hard crystalline igneous rocks, which must 
evidently be referred to the Primary Epoch, and which can 
indeed be proved to take rank among the very oldest rocks 
in the British Islands. 
The rocks to which we are referring are seen at the surface 
between Enderby on the north-east and Sapcote on the south¬ 
west, a distance of 5-| miles, and in a line at right angles to 
this we have indications of their presence over a width of 
2| miles. But they do not occupy the surface of all the tract 
just named; the amount of rock actually exposed does not in 
the aggregate exceed one square mile. They crop out at five 
distinct points, each of which is surrounded and isolated 
from the others by the great expanse of red marl and sand¬ 
stone (the Keuper Mari of the Trias) which constitutes so 
much of the south-west and west of Leicestershire. 
The five areas occupied by igneous rocks are as follows :— 
1. Enderby. 8. Croft. 
2. Narborougli. 4. Sapcote and Stoney Stanton. 
5. Barrow Hill, near Earl Shilton. 
We shall now describe each of these places separately :— 
1. Enderby .—This is the name of a village lying four and 
a-lialf miles south-west of Leicester; standing on elevated 
ground about one mile west of the River Soar, and distant 
about a mile and a-lialf from Narborougli Station. Walking 
from the last-named place, we turn to the right just before en¬ 
tering Enderby, and find ourselves in a very remarkable quarry, 
lying south-west of and close to the village. The rock we 
stand upon, and which forms the lower and middle part of 
the “ face” of the pit, is a compact, hard, and excessively 
tough crystalline rock. Examining it carefully and with the 
aid of a magnifier, we can make out the minerals of which it is 
