46 
view, might be, and have hitherto been, taken for either the 
Upper or Lower shales that occur in association with these strata, 
or with the true shales of the Coal Measures, which one might 
expect to see anywhere in this much disturbed country. <A closer 
inspection, however, proved that they were neither the one nor 
the other, but black shales belonging to a formation much higher 
up in the Geological series. Whilst looking over the débris or 
talus covering the foot of the quarry a portion of a whorl of 
a thick ribbed, keeled Ammonite was picked up. Well! 
Amateur Geologists though we were, we knew sufficient of the 
ABC of the science to conclude that Ammonites did not live 
in the Coal Measure days, at least so far as discoveries have 
hitherto revealed the fauna of that period. This led to further 
search, and whilst examining some of the shaly clay in situ it 
fell to my lot to find traces of a shell well-known to myself and 
others as at ouce characteristic. For between the thin lamine 
impressions of the well-known avicula contorta occurred in sufficient 
quantity to indicate that these were the so-called “paper shales” 
of the Rhzetic Measures. 
The following is the description of the quarry :— 
According to Mr. McMurtrie, this mass of Limestone in which 
the quarry was worked, 80Gyds. W. of that at Vobster, and 
1,900yds. N. of the Mendip hills, is 450yds. in extreme length, 
and from 50 to 120yds. wide. 
The base shows an exposure of Carboniferous Limestone 
running N.E. and §.W. for some 60ft. Formerly worked for 
the lime kiln or for road metal, the face has receded some little 
distance from the lane entrance, and probably further workings 
have been found useless owing to the thickness of the “ heading ” 
of black, unprofitable, clayey shale that, falling from above, now 
forms a thick talus, covering up the more solid beds below. The 
Limestone apparentiy dips to the S.W. Its basset edges, where 
it crops up to the surface, have been planed off almost as level as 
a billiard table, reminding one of that celebrated section in the 
