296 
My paper has hitherto been devoted to giving, I hope, an 
accurate section of Crickley Hill, and in such a manner as can 
be easily verified, as the rocks are there as witnesses to be called 
into court, and I hope they will be often questioned, and 
severely cross-examined by the Members of the Club. 
I am now going to depart from strict scientific inquiry into 
the region of hypothesis, but which I venture to express a hope 
may be suggestive to future investigators. 
From having lived for a long time in the neighbourhood of 
the lower beds of the Inferior Oolite, and having been much 
interested in making the two sections at Birdlip and Crickley, 
my thoughts have often been directed to the mode in which 
they were formed, and over which I have much meditated. 
In reflecting upon the change from the Physical condition 
of the Lias formations, with the transition beds of sands inter- 
vening; for I still think with some of the early geologists 
that it is better to regard them as such, than to class them as 
the top bed of the Upper Lias; it is evident that the basement 
beds of the Inferior Oolite shew little analogy, and must have 
been laid down under widely different conditions to those of the 
Lias beneath them, which is generally an argillaceous deposit. 
Only once that I am aware of has the question of the 
genesis of the Oolites been brought prominently under the 
notice of the Club, and that was in a very able and eloquent 
address by Dr Wright, at the Meeting at Weston near Bath, on 
June 25th, 1874. It was not afterwards published, but I have 
made the following extract of it as given in the President’s 
Address for 1875. 
The Doctor commenced by saying that this subject had 
long occupied a place in his thoughts, and that only of late it 
had gathered such form and consistence as would permit him 
with confidence to put it forward. He had long been persuaded 
that without an intimate knowledge and study of the structure 
of the Zoophyta, it was not possible to comprehend the incalcul- 
able importance of those obscure creatures in the seas of ancient 
and modern times, and he shewed how the reef-building Corals 
can only live and work in water, having a temperature of 
