On the Sections in the Forest Marble, and Great Oolite formations, 
exposed by the new railway from Cirencester to Chedworth, by 
Auten Harker, Professor of Natural History, Royal Agri- 
cultural College, Cirencester. Read 25th February, 1890. 
The construction of the new line of railway from Ciren- 
cester to Andoversford has necessitated a number of cuttings, 
which on account of their great length and depth, have 
exposed some highly important sections of the rocks forming 
the eastern and south-eastern slopes of the Cotteswolds. 
These cuttings have presented to the local geologist an 
unrivalled opportunity for the study, not only of the beds 
themselves and their relation to the surface configuration and 
agricultural features of the district, but also of some general 
problems in the geology of the Great Oolite formation, and 
some special developments it exhibits in its eastward extension 
in the Southern Cotteswolds. 
In the present paper I propose to give a general account 
of the sections between Cirencester and Chedworth, and as full 
and detailed a description of each as I have hitherto been able 
to make. 
The deepest, and by far the most important cutting, is not 
yet completely excavated, so that necessarily the account of it 
must be taken as incomplete and tentative. On two occasions 
the Club has visited portions of the line, as the sections have 
been completed. 
From Cirencester the line runs almost due north to 
Andoversford, and a glance at the geological map (sheets N.E. 
34 and N.E. 44) shows that it traverses the Forest Marble, the 
Great Oolite and Stonesfield Slate, and touches the Fuller’s 
Earth at Upper Chedworth. These several beds have in this 
part of the county an outcrop almost due west and east, so that 
