210 
THE MIDDLE LIAS OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE. 
water as tlie people there told us), the remainder of the 
stone being a bright orange or red colour. Our attention 
was directed to this quarry by noticing the pieces of varie¬ 
gated stone preserved as ornaments at the village inn. It 
was not possible to measure the bed No. 5, but I should 
scarcely think it is more than two feet in thickness, because 
a good spring issues from the side of the hill very little 
below the level of the exposed part of the bed. There are 
several good springs around at about the same level, and 
evidently coming from the same bed. 
I know of no other sections in the neighbourhood of 
Clialcomb in which the beds described above can be now 
seen, but they have been exposed at Middleton Cheney, and 
the lower one was worked for road metal some years ago at 
Warkworth and Overthorpe. 
The beds 2, 8, and 4 I have classed together as “ K the 
band of ironstone nodules has been found nowhere else. 
All the Middle Lias sections I have been able to discover 
between Clialcomb and Byfield exposed the “Spinatus” Zone 
only, and so for the present I pass them by. At Byfield, 
however, there is a very complete development of the Middle 
Lias beds we are considering. On the East and West Junc¬ 
tion Bailway, extending from near Aston-le-Wall to Byfield, 
are several sections of the Middle and Upper Lias. The 
whole of the beds from the “ Communis ” Zone of the Upper 
Lias to the base of the “ Margaritatus ” Zone of the Middle 
Lias have been exposed, though only the hard beds above 
“ I ” can now be seen. The complete section will appear 
later on, but I may say that the bottom hard bed “ L ” was 
found, and that there are some springs in the neighbour¬ 
hood much below the level of the rock-bed, which in all 
probability issue from the base of this bed “ L.” 
Along the valley between Hellidon and Catesby there 
are some exposures of the lower beds of the Middle Lias by 
the side of the brook. In the part of the valley near to 
Hellidon, where a little fall of water occurs, the side of the 
brook is composed of a blue micaceous clay containing a few 
fossils (only Limea acuticosta identified), and in the bank, 
some fifteen to twenty feet above, a very light brown rock 
may be seen, but no fossils could be detected on the 
occasion of my visit. A little further along the brook, and 
at about the same level as the micaceous clay above noticed, 
are some very large pieces of rock very much like the rock- 
bed of this neighbourhood. The former beds must be near 
the base of the “ Margaritatus ” Zone, and I expected to find 
that these large blocks of stone were the bottom bed, but 
