198 
PRE-CARB0N1FER0US FLOOR OF THE MIDLANDS. 
During the Carboniferous era the existence of land in 
Mid-England is demonstrated by the absence of the mountain 
limestone and millstone grit. The northern margin of the 
axis probably consisted of Silurian shales. 
In Permian and Triassic times bolder cliffs and hills 
furnished the breccias and pebble-beds of the Permian and 
Bunter ; while the continued existence of the ridge during 
the Jurassic epoch is shown by the manner in which the 
Liassic and Oolitic strata thin as they approach it, and by 
the pebbles contained in the Lower Greensand, &c. Finally, 
the old land disappeared beneath the waters of the cretaceous 
ocean. 
Keeping these facts in mind we can apply them to discover 
the probable nature of the rocks to be found beneath the 
Mesozoic strata of the Midlands. Borings through these 
Mesozoic rocks are likely to be undertaken for two objects 
only 
(a) In search of Water. 
(b) In search of Coal. 
The Bunter sands and pebble-beds form the main source 
of underground water supply of the Midlands, and the towns 
of Leicester, Northampton, &c., have hoped to derive from 
them a supply comparable with that obtained at Birmingham, 
Stourbridge, &c. But as we go south and south-east we 
approach the ancient land barrier, and the Lower Trias thins 
away and disappears ; so that the Bunter is all but absent in 
Leicestershire, amLentirely absent in Northamptonshire. 
As respects the probable occurrence of seams of coal, a 
similar change must be taken into account. The present 
southern boundary of the coal fields of Warwickshire, 
Leicestershire, and Staffordshire nearly represents the 
ancient termination of the swamps on which the coal 
plants grew ; and the region between the Hartshill-Malvern 
line on the north, and the Thames Valley on the south, 
includes an area in which buried coal fields are not likely 
to be found. 
The Bittern in Sutton Park.— It is perhaps scarcely necessary to 
warn the naturalists of the Midlands against believing in the occur¬ 
rence of the Bittern in Sutton Park without further evidence than 
that afforded by Mr. Bath (p. 107). Mr. Bath will now, I think, allow 
that his statements were founded upon a regrettable mistake. The 
so-called Black Tern (p. 108) also may have been another bird, and the 
mistake in the identification of the animal called a Pine Marten (p. 109) 
is so obvious as to need only to be pointed out.—W. B. Grove, B.A. 
