196 ON THE COTTESWOLDS. 



lower bods of the Great Oolite. Observing some labourers at work in a 

 newly-opened quarry in a field adjoining the road, we turned in, and found 

 them occupied in excavating these stones for roofing-slates. The beds did 

 not appear to be very fossiliferous, nevertheless we obtained a few charac- 

 teristic Great Oolite fossils: Astrea acuminata and Pecten vagans and pere- 

 grinus; and my companion had the good fortune to find a portion of the 

 claw of a crustacean, apparently an Astacus. 



Arrived at the Beech Pike, we put up our horse at an adjoining hostelry, 

 and buckling on our impedimenta, we started hammer in hand for a 

 neighbouring quarry. Here we found the labourers at work upon a freestone 

 of fair quality, some short distance above the beds we last visited; it 

 was full of comminuted shell, but entire fossil were rare; nevertheless, the 

 chisel brought out one or two fair examples of Trigonia i?npressa and 

 31oretoni, and portions of Lima cardiformis were observed. This quarry 

 did not detain us long. Eetracing our steps we crossed the highroad about 

 a quarter of a mile from the turnpike, and entered a sort of farm-road, 

 which at the termination of something more than a mile, brought us to 

 Side, a perfect example of a quiet Ootteswold village, seated on the side 

 of a hill overlooking one of those pretty secluded pastoral valleys so char- 

 acteristic of the district. The cottages being all built of stone, and roofed 

 with the same material, have, in common with the manorial-like farm 

 houses, a grey ancestral look about them which cannot fail to attract the 

 eye and attention of the stranger, while the high gables and square labels 

 over the mullioned windows bear evidence to a remote date of erection, 

 which my be looked for in vain in more busy and populous districts. At 

 the bottom of the valley runs the little stream of the Washbrook, hastening, 

 as do all the many rills and streams on the southern side of the water- 

 shed, to bear its tribute to the Isis. On a bank beneath a hazel coppice, 

 but little above the level of the brook, we found a section of the strata 

 exposed, which upon examination proved to be the true Oolite Marl, an 

 Inferior Oolite bed, distinguished by its characteristic fossils, Terebratula 

 fimbria and carinala. Beneath the hazels, upon the roots of which the 

 plant is commonly parasitic, I gathered some fine blossoms of the Tooth- 

 wort, (Lathrcea squamaria,) for the most part a scarce plant, but not 

 uncommon in the Cotteswold woods. 



Following the downward course of the Washbrook, the upland hamlet of 

 Caudle Green lay over the hill to our right hand, the road to which bordering 

 the course of the stream, presented a pretty section of the Oolite Marl. 

 Presently leaving the valley at a point where a little rivulet descending 

 from the hill-side pours its tributary waters into the Washbrook, the 

 road ascends by a steep incline through Winstone Wood. It would appear 

 that this rivulet is in all probability the index to a line of "fault" of some 



