183 



formed, it is but natural to inquire into its precise position in 

 the Inferior Oolite series, and to ascertain what others have said 

 upon the subject. Unfortunately a study of the literature is 

 likely at first to create a feeling of perplexity, for those who 

 have written about the Inferior Oolite of the Yeovil district, 

 have not agreed in the correlation of its members with those in 

 other parts of the West of England ; nevertheless, by the aid of 

 personal observation, we may extract the truth from the several 

 Geological papers, and ultimately restore comfort to our minds. 



Mr. Charles Moore (to whose papers we naturally turn for 

 information on the Lias and Oolites of Somersetshire) has given 

 the best account of the strata at Ham Hill ; but he did not enter 

 into the question of their exact equivalents, as his object was 

 simply to show the intimate connection between the so-called 

 Midford Sands and the limestones of the Inferior Oolite, in 

 opposition to the view of Dr. Wright that the sands should be 

 grouped with the Upper Lias.* On the Geological Survey Map 

 the Ham Hill stone is coloured the same as the Inferior Oolite 

 Limestone, but Mr. Bristow, who originally surveyed the area, 

 has expressed the opinion that the stone is the equivalent of 

 the upper part of the Midford, or Inferior Oolite Sands, which 

 contain thin and interrupted beds of limestone.f This is the 

 true view of the case, and Prof. Buckman claimed to have been 

 the first to point it out.J Thus layers of stone like Ham Hill 

 stone appear in the Sands in the railway cuttings near Yeovil 

 Junction, and in some of the deep road-cuttings or "hollow-ways" 

 of Babylon Hill. Lately Mr. W. H. Hudleston has drawn 

 particular attention to one of these layers opened up in a pit at 

 Stoford, west of Yeovil Junction. This shelly-layer yielded 

 Trigonia angulata, Tancredia, Araw,onites (Harpoceras) Moorei, 



* Moore, Proc, Somerset Arch. See, vol. xiii. 



t Damon's Geology of Weymouth, &c., 1884, p. 219. 



X Pi-oc. Somerset Arch. Soc, vol. xx., p. 162. 



