86 
of its features as were still to be seen, though it had under- 
gone much alteration by vegetation and by levelling to complete 
the line. It was now time to return to Cirencester, where 
dinner awaited them at the King’s Head Hotel. 
The Fourts and last Fretp Menrrtine of the Club for the 
present season took place on Tuesday, the 17th August, at 
Aust. The party met at the New Passage, at 1.30, and pro- 
ceeded to the Cliff, a distance of about two miles. Owing to 
the low tide an examination was made under favorable circum- 
stances, and a rich find occurred in the Rhetic bone-bed of the 
teeth of Nemacanthus monilifer, several Saurichthys, Ceratodus 
altus, &c. A very fine specimen of Avicula contorta was found, 
and Pecten valoniensis and Ostrea liassica were in great abun- 
dance. There are two remarkable faults in the cliff, in which 
are seen the same beds at a different height from each other of 
ten feet, and at the top of one is a band of stone, which, from 
lateral pressure, shows a folding resembling the figure eight 
cut in half. Two-thirds of the way along the shore the beds 
are raised, forming an arch, and this occurs immediately opposite 
the commencement of the Beachley Cliff, on the other side of 
the river; and it would appear that the same cause that pro- 
duced the dome at Aust raised the Beachley Cliff. 
There is no part of England where the Rhetic series are so 
finely developed as in the counties of Gloucester and Glamorgan. 
It is only within the last forty years that these beds have been 
recognised as belonging to and forming part of the Upper St. 
Cassian and Késen beds of Escher, where they are several 
hundred feet thick, whilst in our own country they rarely 
average more than 35 feet. The term Rheetic was first applied 
to these beds by Mr Charles Moore, and to him belongs the 
honor of having correlated them with those of the Rheetic Alps. 
At Aust are found the teeth of the Ceratodus, and it is remark- 
able that they have not been met with in any other section in 
this country, although occurring abundantly abroad. It is true 
that in some Geological books Ceratodus is mentioned as having 
been found at Westbury, but we have been unable to trace a 
specimen, and believe it to be a mistake, 
