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Note on the Ham Hill Stone. By Horace B, Woodward, F.G.S.,* 



oj the Geological Survey of England and Wales. 



(Read February 9ih, 1887.; 



The celebrated building-stone of Ham Hill, near Yeovil, offers 

 but little attraction to the collector of fossils, for he may hammer 

 away in the quarries all day long, without obtaining any 

 palseontological reward ; but the stone is not without geological 

 interest, for it differs considerably from the ordinary beds of the 

 Inferior Oolite, and its precise position in that series has been a 

 subject of some discussion. 



The ordinary beds of the Inferior OoUte comprise an upper 

 division of marly, oolitic, and iron-shot limestones ; and a lower 

 division of sands (known as the Midford Sands) with impersistent 

 bands and large concretionary masses of calcareous sandstone. 

 The Ham Hill stone is mainly composed of sand and comminuted 

 shells. In considering its relation to other divisions of the series, 

 we must, of course, remember that however persistent the 

 ordinary or characteristic features of a formation may be in our 

 country, such features after all are but local portions of the 

 original formation ; and with regard to marine deposits, were the 

 full record of each period preserved and open to our inspections 

 it would no doubt exhibit as much diversity as do the sea-bottoms 

 at the present day. 



In the case of the Ham Hill stone, we picture a shoal of shifting 

 sands and broken shells, such as may be found in many areas of 

 the English Channel or the German Ocean ; and we are thank- 

 ful, while searching for fossils, to recognise even the fragment 

 of a Pecten or an Oyster. After contemplating the rock and 

 endeavouring to picture the conditions under which it was 



* Commuuicated by permissiou of the Director General of the 

 Geological ISurvey 



