41 



75 feet in thickness ; the upper 25 feet of these alternating 

 beds of pale grey, hard and soft Marls, resting upon a few 

 inches of Strontian Marls, the remaining 50 feet are greenish 

 pale yellow and red Marls, which crumble away somewhat 

 rapidly. Upon the upper or Pale Grey Beds rest the Black 

 Shales, which measure 65 feet ; the Bone Bed, a very thin band, 

 is 38 feet above the commencement of the Shales, and research 

 failed to detect one nearer the base as in other sections. No 

 fossils were obtained in the 38 feet of Shales below the Bone 

 Bed, except a few Annellide burrows. This excessive develope- 

 ment of Shales below the Bone Bed is peculiar to this area. 

 East of Watchet Harbour they are 43 feet thick below the same 

 horizon; west of the Harbour 46 feet; and at the Railway 

 Section south of Watchett 35 feet ; in neither place is the Bone 

 Bed more than 2 inches in thickness, and is everywhere highly 

 comminuted. 



Immediately below the Bone Bed there occurs a bed of smooth 

 Argillaceous nodular Limestone, the last in which fossils occur 

 (Cardium Ehseticum and an Axinus). The remaining 40 feet 

 of Black Shales being destitute of organic remains, this is 

 significant, and with the exception of the Westbury or Garden 

 Cliff Section, where the Pullastone Sandstones occur, seems 

 universal in the west of England. All the Black Shales above 

 Bone Bed, I term the " Upper Rhsetic," and below to the new 

 Red Marls, "Lower Rhsetic," the latter group being nearly 120 

 feet in thickness, and totally void of organic remains. The Bone 

 Bed is a grey Chrystalliae silecio-calcareous Limestone, con- 

 taining teeth of Saurichthys apicalis, Acrodus minimus and 

 Hybodus, &c. Twenty-seven feet of Black Shales with bands 

 of impure Limestone succeed this Bone breccia in upward 

 succession ; as many as seven beds of Limestones occur, between 

 the Bone Bed and the base of the White Lias, all containing 

 the characteristic Rhsetic Fossils. Pecten Yaloniensis, Cardium 

 Rhseticum, Avicula contorta, Anomia, Anatina Suessii, and 

 Myophoria, &c., being by far the most abundant, and in great 

 profusion. 



