155 
On sume Sections of the Upper Lias recently exposed at Nails- 
worth, Gloucestershire. By Joan Lycerrt, Esq. 
Reap 21st Jury 1858. 
So few opportunities are afforded for examining the Upper Lias 
of the Cotteswolds, so small are the artificial exposures of the 
stage occasionally made, so limited their extent and depth, that 
its fossils are almost unknown, and even the thickness of the 
stage has been very variously estimated. During the author’s 
experience of more than twenty years, the Upper Lias has only 
been known to him by small sections in clay-beds used for brick- 
making, and these are usually quite destitute of fossils; some 
cuttings, therefore, recently made, which exposed the entire 
thickness of the stage and many of its fossils, have induced him 
to prepare the present brief notice. 
The only authorities for the Upper Lias of the district are— 
‘Outlines of the Geology of England’ by Conybeare and Phillips, 
1822; ‘Outline of the Geology of the Neighbourhood of Chel- 
tenham,’ by Sir R. I. Murchison, 1834; the enlarged edition of 
the latter work by J. Buckman and H. E. Strickland, 1845 ; 
‘Memoirs of the Geological Survey of Great Britain ;’ ‘The 
Geology of the Country around Cheltenham,’ by E. Hull, Esq., 
1857. In the first of these works the Upper Lias is only dis- 
tinguished from the other membérs of the same formation by a 
useful section given at page 252, exhibiting the succession in the 
beds upon the western slope of the Cotteswolds at Painswick 
Hill, by the late Mr. Halifax of Standish ; but their thickness is 
not given. ! 
VOL. II. ° 
