205 



These pits, and the three places next visited are alluded to in Dr. Holl's 

 paper before mentioned. 



"We next proceeded northwards to the quarry No. 2, shewn in the 

 section on the other side, which is situated on a rather lower level, and 

 exhibits the Lower Freestone and Oolite Marl, capped by a few feet of 

 the Upper Freestone. These beds dip easterly at a low angle (about six 

 degrees ;) and a little further to the east we came to another quarry, (No. 3,) 

 shewing nearly the whole of the Upper Freestone, sandy, and unfossi- 

 liferous ; and still further on in the same direction we found a third quarry, 

 (No. 4) exposing the same beds, also nearly, if not quite, unfossiliferous. 



"From the last quarry we proceeded to view the 'Rolling Bank quarry.' 

 The arrangement of the beds, (of which the following sketch will perhaps 

 give some idea,) was well exposed at the time of our visit. 



"Dr.WRiGHTcontended that the beds into which the Rolling Bank Quarry 

 has been excavated, are the same as those in Nos. 3 and 4, but which 

 had become locally fossiliferous. But there is one circumstance which, it 

 appears to me, is quite fatal to his argument ; which is, that inasmuch as 

 the beds of the Rolling Bank Quarry are more or less fossiliferous 

 throughoiTt, it is improbable that the fauna so abundant at this spot 

 shouldhaveremained local throughout the whole of the period during which 

 strata to the thickness of 22 feet were accumulating, and not have spread, 

 during the latter portion of that period, at any rate to the neighbouring 

 quarry, distant only about 400 yards, knowing as we do that there is a 

 tendency for the fauna of any particular spot to radiate, and spread 

 over wider and wider areas as time advances. 



"Assuming therefore that the life of the lowest beds was confined to 

 the Rolling Bank QuaiTy, we cannot, I think, admit the probability of 

 its continuing to have been so restricted during the deposition of every 

 succeeding bed, each of which was slowly accumulated, as we infer, not 

 only from the nature of the material of which they are composed, but also 

 from the fact that certain species came into being, flourished, and became 

 extinct, almost within the limits of a single stratum, as for instance was 



