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thickei than at Harbury, but in both cases the latter is seen passing into the 

 "Rhoetic beds," which are more fully developed at Saltford than at Harbury. 

 Fossils are usually abundant in this part of the series, especially animonitea 

 of great size, a liucklandi and Oonyhcari, nautilus striatas, a large pinna, 

 gryphcea incurva and arcuata, ostrca, irreriularis, cardinia ovalis, modiola, 

 rhynchonella variabilis, waldheimia perforata, cidaris Edionrdsii, extracrinus 

 briareus, lima giyantca, and anUquala. Fish and Saurian remains are very- 

 rare in Gloucestershire and AVarvvickshire, but are met with occasionally 

 elsewhere. There is also one bed of limestone and shale charged witk 

 masses of fucoids, which holds a similar position in both these counties. In 

 Warwickshire, Worcestershire, and Somersetshire, a species of isastrea is 

 now and then met with, and this is undoubtedly the true position of this 

 coral ; but there is another in the Lias at Skye, in Scotland, which occupies 

 a different and probably lower position, which may, perhaps, belong to the 

 same species (isastrea Murchisoni). It occurs there in a regular bed, in 

 masses three feet thick. I have also discovered a small cladophyllia in the 

 vale of Gloucester. I allude particularly to the Corals, because until within 

 the last few years they were thought to be, with one or two rare exceptions, 

 almost entirely wanting in the British Lias, but now many genera and a still 

 larger number of species are known, and if certain forms mark particular 

 beds this class of Zoophytes holds nearly as important a place as the Am- 

 monites, except, of course, that the latter are much more abundant. Nor 

 must I omit to mention the presence of Insects, chiefly consisting of elytra 

 of beetles, which I discovered both in the shales and limestones of this series 

 in the vale of Gloucester, but with the exception of the upper Lias, the 

 calcareous lands which more immediately overlie the "Khcetic beds," are the 

 chief repository of the Annulosa. As they are comparatively rare in the 

 "Lima beds," they were probably a few remains of beetles drifted far out 

 to sea, and deposited with the marine fauna of the period. With the excep- 

 tion of pieces of wood, fragments of Araucaria, and single fronds of ferns, 

 these are nearly all the evidences we have of the contemporary terrestrial 

 flora — a scanty record, indeed ; but on which no one, of course, would infer 

 that there might not have been an abundance of animals and plants on some 

 far distant land, the cliffs of which were washed by the waves of the 

 Liassic sea. 



The series of strata which succeed in descending order, those last- 

 mentioned, consist of courses of limestone and shale mostly of a grey and 

 blue colour, but of much finer texture than the above. Their icthyological 

 character is so distinct that they can readily be distinguished from the " Lima 

 beds," and it is worthy of note that they retain this peculiarity over a wide 

 area in various parts of the country where I have studied them. The lime- 

 stones are usually very finely laminated and less crystalline, and contain in 

 greater or less abundance a number of insect remains by which they may 

 be very well marked, and hence I have denominated them " Insect Lime- 



