THE MIDDLE LIAS OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE. 
185 
be very thin—a mere littoral accumulation, sixty or seventy 
feet in thickness—resting upon a degenerate representative 
of the Mountain Limestone, evidently also deposited close to 
an old coast-line. Some hard red marls and coarse grits and 
sandstones at the very bottom of the Gayton boring have 
been assigned to the Old Red Period, but it is more probable 
that they are Lower Carboniferous. 
(To be continued.) 
THE MIDDLE LIAS OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 
CONSIDERED 
1. —STRATIGRAPHICALLY. 
2. —PALEONTOLOGICALLY. 
3. —AS A SOURCE OF BUILDING STONE, ROAD METAL 
AND IRONSTONE. 
4. —AS A SOURCE OF WATER SUPPLY FOR TOWNS 
AND VILLAGES. 
5. —AS A RECEPTACLE FOR WATER, WHEREBY 
FLOODS MAY BE MITIGATED. 
BY BEEBY THOMPSON, F.C.S., F.G.S. 
INTRODUCTION. 
For several years the town of Northampton has had 
a very short supply of water, and yet during some 
portion of this period the district around has been subject to 
excessive and destructive floods. It is very commonly 
believed that excessive agricultural drainage is one of the 
chief causes of both these evils. My own ideas of the matter 
will be sufficiently explained later on, but it may be as well 
to state at once that the primary object of this treatise is to 
show that the Middle Lias of Northamptonshire, which is 
the chief water-bearing bed to the west and south-west of 
Northampton, offers considerable facilities for remedying the 
condition of things above referred to by one operation—that 
of artificially letting in to the porous beds of the district the 
water which is now largely kept out by natural and artificial 
means. This explanation will account for, and I hope excuse, 
the introduction of a section dealing with the springs of the 
county generally. 
