PRE-CARBONIFEROUS FLOOR OF THE MIDLANDS. 
163 
THE PRE-CARBONIFEROUS FLOOR OF THE 
MIDLANDS. 
BY W. JEROME HARRISON, F.G.S. 
(Continued from page 135.) 
In tlie Orton boring even the Trias was absent, and the 
Lower Lias reposed on a quartz-felsite which was penetrated 
to a depth of seventy-four feet. This rock appears to me* 
identical with the quartz-felsite of the Caldicote pit (Nuneaton). 
Its position—twenty-five miles south-east of Cliarnwood— 
shows a much greater extension of the line of upheaval 
marked by the anticlinals of Cliarnwood and Hartsliill than 
was previously known. At Rugby the boring was clearly in 
a filled-up valley, for although several hundred feet of red 
marls and sandstones were passed through (underlying an 
equal thickness of Lias), yet the boring terminated in the 
Upper Trias. A good supply of water was obtained, but it 
was so salt as to be unfit for domestic use. 
The Sapcote boring in South Leicestershire was com¬ 
menced in 1863. After passing through 540 feet of Triassie 
marls and sandstones the boring tool reached indurated slialy 
and slaty beds of a dark colour, much jointed, and dipping at 
a very high angle; a total depth of 1,655 feet was obtained. 
I believe these beds to represent part of the Stockingford 
Shales, and therefore to be of Cambrian age. Mr. Boswortli, 
by whom the Sapcote boring was executed, speaks of the 
shales of the Stockingford cutting (at a time when the latter 
w r ere thought to be Coal-Measures), as “ similar to those at 
Sapcote.” He also refers to the Sapcote cores as “ precisely 
similar to those found at Evington.” 
. The three borings next in order—those commencing in the 
Rluetics and Lower Lias on the east side of the town of 
Leicester—were executed between 1876 and 1880. At the first 
boring, on the eastern foot of the Spinney Hills, a bed of running 
sand was met with in the Trias at a depth of 750 feet, and the 
difficulties were so great that the boring was abandoned at 
this point. At the next attempt old rocks were reached at 
a depth of 728 feet, and the boring was discontinued at 819 
feet. The third boring, a mile further east, reached similar 
strata at 836 feet, and ended at 1,002 feet. The bottom 
rocks in these two bore-lioles were dark-blue, much jointed, 
coarse, indurated shales or slates, just like what the Stocking¬ 
ford shales would be when unweathered. No fossils were 
* I have examined the cores from most of the borings given in the 
table. 
