241 



Remarks on the Lias at Fretherne near Newnham, and Purton 

 near Sharpness ; with an Account of some new Foraminifera 

 discovered there; and on certain Pleistocene Deposits in the 

 Vale of Gloucester. By the Rev. P. B. Brodie, M.A., 

 F.G.S. 



Read 3rd May 1853. 



I am afraid that the few observations I have to offer on the 

 strata and fossils at Fretherne Cliff will present little novelty or 

 importance ; still there are a few points of interest to which I 

 wish to draw the attention of our Members, and which seem to 

 deserve a short notice. The Lias here rises in the shape of a 

 low cliff at the end of a round hill between Saul and Arlingham. 

 You are aware that the Severn in its course below Longney 

 makes a great curve, so that the low lands in this district are 

 bounded on three sides by the river, but the generally flat aspect 

 of the scenery is relieved by the picturesque and bold outlines of 

 the Oolitic hills on the east and south-east, and the Palaeozoic 

 system of May Hill and the Forest of Dean on the west and north- 

 west. There are several cliffs on the banks of the Severn where 

 the Lias is exposed between Gloucester and Aust Passage. West- 

 bury is, I believe, the first of these below Gloucester, which I 

 have already described (Fossil Insects, p. 58), but most of them 

 exhibit the lowest beds of the Lias resting on the Red Marl, and 

 contain a peculiar and on the whole distinct assemblage of or- 

 ganic remains. To this Fretherne and Purton form an excep- 

 tion, as the small sections exposed there consist of the lower Lias 

 overlying the " Ostrea bed," equivalent to certain other portions 

 of the series in the Vale of Gloucester, as at Hatherly, the Leigh, 

 Piffs Elm, Hardwicke, &c. The upper part of the former cliff 

 is composed of several layers of grayish white and blue lime- 

 stone, often nodular, divided by clay; and contains numerous 

 fossils, viz. the characteristic Gryphaa incurva, Lima gigantea, 

 Gervillia, Avicula, Pecten, Nautilus, Ammonites, spines and plates 

 of Echinoderms, and a few other shells. The lower bands pre- 

 sent the usual alternations of blue limestone and shales, which 

 are often loaded with broken joints of Pentacrinites, amongst 

 which a few heads of the rarer Pentacrinites tuberculatus (Miller) 

 have been met with. This cliff, however, is particularly interesting, 



