220 



and uearer home, Coombe Hill. The bold escarpment of Garden Cliff, 

 near the village of Westbury, is composed of beds of three distinct ages, 

 all conformable to each other, and all clearly defined. I say three distinct 

 ages, if we ^dmit that these Rhsetic,* or ^offent beds, should be con- 

 sidered to be of independent age ; because, if our views were based upon 

 and determined purely by stratigraphical and petrological conditions and 

 conformability of strata, we should assign no real and independent 

 position or age to the beds in question, although physically, as well as 

 Palaeontologically they are distinct from the underlying and overlying 

 beds, i.e. the Red Marls of the Keuper below, and the limestones and 

 shales of the Lower Lias above. At Garden CKff, or Westbury, all 

 these conditions are admirably exposed, and nowhere in Gloucestershire 

 are the chief features of the beds comprised in the deposits of this age, so 

 clearly defined; and untU the interest excited through research on the 

 Continent, and the papers by Dr. Wright and Mr. Moore upon these 

 beds in England, Westbury and the Aust Passage series were believed to 

 be the most tyjjical in this country; subsequent research, however, and 

 especially of late by Mr. Bbistow and myself, have enabled us to critically 

 examine the grand coast sections at Watchett and Penarth, as well as 

 Puriton, Patchway, and other inland and railway sections, with all of 

 which the Westbury beds in the main agree, difiering only in those details 

 conseqiient upon local physical conditions during synchronous deposition. 



The entire section exposed at Westbury, including the red Marls, 

 measures about 70ft. The lower 16 feet in the section, down to the 

 mean level of the Severn, consists of six alternating bands of grey and 

 red fissile and conchoidal Marls, (No. 1 in section,) apparently here 

 containing no fossils. These Marls dip 3° S.E. ; they correspond in 

 position and age to the same (but lithologically rather different) beds 

 at Watchett, Penarth, and Puriton, at which places I have termed them 

 "Tea-green Marls," from the peculiar hue of the freshly-fractured shales 

 when exposed, and the constancy of their conditions. The intermittent 

 bands of these Tea-green Marls at the above-mentioned sections are 

 remarkable, and worthy of much attention in the sections. 



Above these red and grey marls is a band of coarsely conchoidal white 

 and grey marl, (No 2 in the section,) measuring 3ft. 3in. in thickness, 

 more indurated than No 1, which ciiimbles readily upon being disturbed ; 

 succeeding this (No. 3) is a sei-ies of Grey Marls having a fine grained 



* "Elisetische stiife," a term applied to these beds in Wurtemburg by M. GUmbeL 

 + KSssener Sclucliten von Hauer, Jakrbiich der Geolo. Reichtenstalt, 1853, and 

 of Suess, 1854. 



