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the geology of the Avon Basin in the Proceedings of the Bristol 
Naturalists’ Society and of the district of Portishead particularly, 
in Vol. V. (page 17), 1885, thoroughly examined this district in 
company of the Rev. H. H. Winwood, and the latter gave the 
Members a full explanation of the difficulties attached to the 
geology of the whole district. Standing on Battery Point, the 
westernmost cape of the Portishead ridge, which is of Carbon- 
iferous Limestone dipping 50° N.E.,and looking South across 
Woodhill Bay, the Old Red Sandstone point of West Hili forms 
the southernmost point of the Bay, which is hollowed out in 
_ the softer Carboniferous Limestone shales and a patch of alluvium. 
Ninety feet from the base of the shales occurs a very remarkable 
stratum of reddish Limestone, called the ‘“‘ Bryozoa Bed,” peculiar 
to the Avon Basin. in which are embedded a vast number of 
fossils of minute organisms, excellently preserved and converted 
into Peroxide of Iron. The Members possessed themselves of 
many specimens of this stone, and of the lower beds of the 
Carboniferous Limestone containing spirifers and other fossils. 
The amateur photographers in the party having taken several 
p:ates of the exposed section of Carboniferous Limestone in the 
southern cliff a start was made for the Old Red Sandstone point 
at the other horn of the bay, where scales of the characteristic 
fish of this geological period holoptychius have been found. 
Arriving at the end of the esplanade the rough beach of water- 
worn boulders presented an impossible road for all but confirmed 
geologists and photographers, so the majority of the party 
gradually found their way back to the Royal Pier Hotel, 
where the remainder who had braved the stony beach rejoined 
them before the luncheon hour. 
The programme of the excursion included a three mile walk 
after the mid-day repast to view the Churches at Portishead and 
Portbury, but the thermometer marked this day after a thunder- 
storm in the early morning as much as 68° in the shade, and the 
sun re-appearing at this time in its full brilliancy, the heat did 
not suffer all the pedestrians to reach the second. 
