A HISTORY OF STAFFORDSHIRE essentially of soft red marls of nearly uniform composition, and lying at a gentle angle across the great syncline of central Staffordshire, the scenery of the Keuper Marl country lacks interest. Low scarps and ridges, where the strata consist of thin bands of brown and white flags (skerries) occasion- ally break the monotony, but except towards the base these features are impersistent. In the past the Keuper Marl country was largely covered with woods, of which Needwood Forest and Chartley Park remain as relics. The marls are of great thickness, possibly as much as 2,000 feet to the north-east of Stafford. That they were laid down under water, in a large lake subjected to intense evaporation, the beds of rocksalt and gypsum afford the most conclusive evidence. As the basin became rilled up the marls gradually extended over the underlying sub-divisions, and finally in the north overlapped them all until they invaded the bays and hollows of the Carboniferous rocks which here formed the margins of the basin. The red marl forms an excellent soil and was formerly dug for ' top-dressing,' the small pits excavated for this purpose or for drinking troughs lying scattered in countless numbers all over its outcrop. The celebrated alabaster quarries of Fauld near Tutbury lie in the Keuper Marl. Alabaster is here obtained in large slabs, and was used extensively for the ornamental work of Croxden Abbey and Lichfield Cathedral. Two hundred years ago, and long before it was quarried near Tettenhall, the Burton workers in alabaster had attained a considerable status. Brine wells have been sunk into the marls to the north of Stafford and at Shirleywich. RHjETIC PERIOD The gradual passing away of the Triassic continental period is revealed in the interesting outliers of the Rhaetic formation in Needwood Forest and Bagots Park to the west of Burton-on-Trent. The sections are very meagre, the best being the exposure at Marchington Cliff where the red Keuper Marls pass up imperceptibly into bluish white conchoidal marls and impure limestones containing Axinus cloacinus and overlain by a few feet of the characteristic black Rhastic shales. With the Rhastic Beds the geological history of the county as re- corded in the solid rock formations terminates. We know that the Rhaetic deposits mark the commencement of a great regional depression during which Britain and western Europe lay submerged for a vast interval of time beneath the ocean, but of which no relics have been detected in Staffordshire. To the east the Jurassic and Cretaceous systems follow each other in consecutive order ; to the west, at Audlem, it is known that at least the Jurassic seas extended, but from Staffordshire its sediments have been swept away. Of the early stages of the Tertiary period, so well exhibited in the south-eastern counties, Staffordshire again presents a blank, so that volume after volume of the geological record has been 24
