( 325 ) PART V. MESOZOIC OR SECONDARY. CHAPTER XXIX. LOWER MESOZOIC STRATA. Triassic. Geographical Range and Physical Features. 1 —We now enter the next division or the Mesozoic series. In the British islands the Triassic rocks occupy an extensive area, comprising the low plains in the north-west and north-east of Eng land, and the central part of England. The New Red or Triassic sandstones appear in the low part of Lancashire, by Poulton, Preston, Ormskirk, and Liverpool, and occupy a large breadth in the midland counties, from Chester and Shrewsbury on the western portion, to Manchester, Congleton, Newcastle-under-Lyne, Cheadle, Ashbourne, and Nottingham on the east. From Nottingham a long and continuous range of these red rocks runs northwards, resting nearly or quite conformably on the Permian strata, which also, in their turn, unconformably overlie the Coal- measures, Millstone Grit, and Carboniferous limestone. This series occupies the vale of the Trent, and the vales of York and Mowbray, expiring in the broad estuary of the Tees. Resuming our survey at Nottingham, it will be seen that the plain between that town, Leicester, Coventry, Warwick, Worcester, and Shrewsbury is chiefly filled with the Permian and New Red or Triassic sandstones and marls, except where the subjacent Coal-measures, Car boniferous limestone, and Cambrian rocks of Charnwood Forest stand up through them as islands in the Triassic plain, as they probably also did in the Triassic sea at the time of its deposition. From Worcester southwards, the Severn Valley is chiefly occupied by the New Red series, which, after many sinuosities, and filling many depressions in the older rocks about Bristol, and the Carboni- I Consult " The Triassic and Permian Rocks of the Midland Counties of Eng land” (Mem. GeoL Survey, England and Wales), by E. Hull, F.R.S. 1869.