82 
7th April, 1869, which will be found in the Fifth Volume of the 
Transactions of the Cotteswold Club. The first visit was made 
to the gravel-pit at Highnam, which is described and figured in 
the above-named paper, the correctness of which was verified. 
From thence the party proceeded to examine the exposure of the 
Rheetic bed in the railway cutting at Lassington. At this point 
there is a band of Lower Lias stone, in which is found Ammonites 
planorbis, and resting upon it are the Rhetic beds, com- 
pressed into a few feet, in which the Monotis occurs, the black 
shales being absent. The Rhetic beds are forced up at an 
acute angle, and repose on the New Red Marls. The Rhetics 
show a thickness at Wainlode, between the Tea-green Marls 
and the Ostrea bed of 33 feet, and at Westbury of 35 feet. 
The great line of disturbance, extending a distance of 120 
miles, from Flintshire to Somersetshire, is felt in this area, and 
the formations are considerably displaced in consequence. At 
the “Island” at Gloucester the recent boring for water showed 
that a depth of 350 feet was passed through without reaching 
the base of the Lias, whilst at Highnam, at a distance not 
exceeding a mile and a half, the Rhetics were found at 20 feet 
below the surface. 
From Lassington the party drove to Limbury hill, near 
Hartpury, the summit of which is crowned by a remarkable 
deposit of gravel, which will be found described by Mr Lucy, 
in his paper already referred to, on the “ Gravels of the Severn, 
Avon and Evenlode.” The plateau of Limbury commands a 
grand panoramic prospect of hills and dales, from many remote 
parts whereof the vast accumulation of gravel has been brought 
together by the action of ice and water on that old shoal of 
the Pleistocene sea. And this is only a part of the story, 
for the vales below have been hollowed out by denuding 
agencies since these gravels were deposited. What a tale of time 
and change does not this reveal to us! So much time was spent 
in examining these interesting gravels that it was late when they 
arrived at the great barn at Hartpury—100 feet in length— 
which was doubtless the tithe-barn of the Abbots of Gloucester, 
who, until the Dissolution, were mesne lords of Hartpury. 
