THE MIDDLE LIAS OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE. 
291 
Well was 21ft.) for the thickness of the Middle Lias in this 
neighbourhood, it will be evident that the total displacement 
is about 75ft. 
Two wells have been made on the south side of this 
“fault,” and it is these that have supplied the necessary 
evidence with regard to it. One at Messrs. P. Phipps and 
Co’s. Brewery passed through 27ft. of alluvium and gravel, 
and about 30ft. of alternating beds of clay and rock before 
reaching the water-bearing bed. Another, at the London and 
North Western Kailway Station in Bridge Street, seems, 
according to the account left of a boring made there, to have 
passed through the Middle Lias at 40ft. The description 
runs as follows :— 
Superficial accumulation, consisting of ) 
detrital gravels, dark tenaceous clays, > 46ft. 
with erratic boulders ) 
Lias blue clav, with bands of stone 550ft. 
A well at Delapre Abbey, 40ft. deep, is also supposed to reach 
the Maidstone, but whether the upper or lower spring is tapped 
is uncertain. The Abbey is only a little over a third of a 
mile S.E. of the railway station. 
It will be seen on reference to a map, that the three places 
particularly mentioned, viz., Weedon, Kislingbury, and North¬ 
ampton are situated almost in a straight line running east 
and west, and that this coincides almost exactly with the 
direction and position of the Nen as far as Northampton. 
The “fault” is only marked on the Geological maps as 
extending from Newnham to a little east of Kislingbury, but 
it appears quite evident (a) that the fault at Northampton is a 
continuation of the other, and, if so, (b) that in this part of 
the Nen valley the “ fault ” and the river stand related to each 
in the manner of cause and effect. 
With respect to the first contention (a), it is probably un¬ 
necessary to say much, because a displacement of 75ft. must 
have had an effect much beyond the immediate neighbourhood 
where it has been detected, and being, so far as can be 
ascertained, in almost an exact line with the older known 
“fault,” and within three miles of it as marked on the Geo¬ 
logical maps, it is extremely unlikely that it should be a 
separate one. The evidence to be obtained from wells, too, 
shows that the northern and southern Marlstone areas are 
quite disconnected. It may be that the neighbourhood of 
Kislingbury formed, as it were, the fulcrum about which the 
