155 



On some Sections of the Upper Lias recently exposed at Nails* 

 worth, Gloucestershire. By JOHN LYCETT, Esq. 



RKAD 21sx JULY 1858. 



So few opportunities are afforded for examining the Upper Lias 

 of the Cotteswolds, so small are the artificial exposures of the 

 stage occasionally made, so limited their extent and depth, that 

 its fossils are almost unknown, and even the thickness of the 

 stage has been very variously estimated. During the author's 

 experience of more than twenty years, the Upper Lias has only 

 been known to him by small sections in clay-beds used for brick- 

 making, and these are usually quite destitute of fossils; some 

 cuttings, therefore, recently made, which exposed the entire 

 thickness of the stage and many of its fossils, have induced him 

 to prepare the present brief notice. 



The only authorities for the Upper Lias of the district are 

 ' Outlines of the Geology of England' by Conybeare and Phillips, 

 1822; 'Outline of the Geology of the Neighbourhood of Chel- 

 tenham/ by Sir R. I. Murchison, 1834; the enlarged edition of 

 the latter work by J. Buckman and H. E. Strickland, 1845; 

 'Memoirs of the Geological Survey of Great Britain;' 'The 

 Geology of the Country around Cheltenham/ by E. Hull, Esq., 

 1857. In the first of these works the Upper Lias is only dis- 

 tinguished from the other members of the same formation by a 

 useful section given at page 252, .exhibiting the succession in the 

 beds upon the western slope of the Cotteswolds at Painswick 

 Hill, by the late Mr. Halifax of Standish; but their thickness is 

 not given. 



VOL. II. O 



