
41 
better explain its position in the general section of the Lias 
formation, but it may be briefly said that below the superficial 
covering, which will presently be referred to in detail, lies 
about 6 feet in thickness of the Lower Lias, followed by the 
Rhetic White Lias and Black Marl which form the basement 
beds in the Tyning quarry. Then follow, in the usual order, 
the Keuper Marls or New Red Sandstone, and the Coal 
Measures, but neither of these formations have any bearing on the 
subject of the present paper. 
It was in the ordinary course of quarrying operations in the 
Tyning quarry during last Autumn, that the workmen met with the 
series of remains to which the attention of the Members will now 
be invited. It has already been pointed out that immediately 
above the regular beds of the Lias, there occurs here, as 
elsewhere in the Radstock district, a superficial deposit of varying 
thickness, known locally by the workmen as the “ruckle of the 
Lias,” consisting of loose débris, evidently derived from the Lias 
rocks in the immediate locality, which has here been deposited in 
a brown clayey earth, probably when the land about here was 
last submerged. It contains irregular fragments of Lias, mostly 
thin and water worn, which have been deposited in a semi- 
stratified order, and in which fragments of Belemnites and other 
Liassic fossils are frequently found. 
In this particular quarry the thickness of the deposit is about 4 
feet, and, according to their usual practice, the quarrymen were 
engaged in removing it in order to uncover the solid beds of rock 
which lay beneath, when they suddenly came upon a total change 
in the deposit which attracted their attention. 
Instead of the ordinary Lias débris intermixed with brown clay 
or earth, they discovered what had evidently been an ancient 
excavation of a very unusual character, the infilling consisting 
of ordinary dark surface soil, intermixed with a variety of ancient 
remains which form the subject of the present Paper. 
The enlarged section of this part of the quarry (now submitted) 
