8 
THE SYENITES OF SOUTH LEICESTEKSHIKE. 
composed. These are felspar (pinkish or grey) and horn¬ 
blende (green), with a few grains of quartz. On the whole, 
this is a rock which may be termed syenite. It differs from 
granite in containing hornblende instead of mica, and in 
having hut little quartz. Here and there we notice patches of a 
bluish or greenish tint in the rock, but these are better seen 
in other quarries, and will be noticed hereafter. 
The rock which forms the upper ten to twenty feet of the 
face of the pit is of a very different nature from that upon which 
it rests. These upper beds are stratified—that is, they occur 
in distinct layers or strata—a fact which shows us at once 
that they were deposited under water; they are not at all 
crystalline, but are green and red marls, with a band of sand¬ 
stone from two to four feet thick. Everywhere they follow 
the irregular surface of the syenite, in one place filling up a 
deep hollow in that rock, so as to be perceptibly curved. 
This is finely shown in an excellent photograph taken by 
Messrs. Spencer for my work on the “ Geology of Leicester 
and Rutland.” 
These upper strata are the Keuper marls and Upper Keuper 
sandstone, a sub-division of a great series of beds called the 
Triassic formation. The sandstone band is the same as that 
which forms the Dane Hills, near Leicester, where it contains 
teeth and spines of fishes and the covering of a little crustacean 
(Kstheria minuta) in appearance like a bivalve shell; probably 
the Enderby bed would yield similar evidences of life to a 
diligent worker. 
But the most remarkable point in this pit remains yet to 
be noticed. In an excavation on the right-hand of the entrance, 
and again at the other extremity of the pit, we see underlying 
the syenite (which has all the appearance of having broken 
through it) a mass of coarse slaty rock of a dull green or grey 
colour, extremely tough and traversed by many fine lines or 
veins, very spotty too in places. The water in the hollows of 
the pit where this slate is exposed interferes much with a 
careful examination of it, but it appears to have a northerly 
inclination or dip ; at one point it rises 15 feet above the floor 
of the pit, under which it certainly extends. This (Lower 
Enderby) quarry is worked by Mr. Marston, who utilises the 
upper beds (Keuper Marls) or bearing,” by making excellent 
bricks out of the marly beds. 
Entering now Enderby village, we find it indeed to be 
“ founded on a rock.” When we reach the top of the sharply 
sloping street we find more quarries, worked by Mr. Rawson. 
In these the mode of weathering of the syenite is well shown : 
the surface blocks have become rounded into immense balls 
