13 



Works section, and inferred from their condition that consider- 

 able changes had occurred during the period in which the 

 bottoms of the Stroud Valleys had been excavated, and the 

 deposition of the gravel, and afterwards of the peat, had taken 

 place. All these gravels rest upon excavated hollows in the 

 Middle and Lower Lias, and there is no trace of any transition 

 period between the excavating and depositing processes. The 

 subject was suggested as one for fxirther investigation and 

 discussion by the Club, and of importance in its bearing on the 

 great question of our valley formations. 



Wednesday, 21st June, The Second Field Meeting of the Club 

 was held at the New Passage, distant about two and a half miles 

 from Aust Chif, by a most delightful walk along the banks 

 of the Severn. The state of the tide was very favourable for a 

 complete examination of the base of the cliff, and the Geologists 

 were thus enabled to make a careful survey of the section, and 

 to obtain a good series of characteristic fossils. The escarp- 

 ment at Aust Chff is well known as presenting a fine section of 

 those remarkable alternations of shales and marls, now known as 

 the Rhsetic or "Pennarth Beds," with their accompanying Bone 

 bed, of which the section at Garden CUflP, Westbury, so well 

 described by Mr. Ethekidge, is another and typical example. 



I am indebted to Mr. Etheridge for a short account of the 

 Aust section, which, with the beautiful diagram annexed, is well 

 worthy of study and reference. 



Notes upon the Rluetic Beds at Aust Cliff, with relation to those at 

 Westbury-on-Severn. 



The Valley of the Severn, in many localities, is famous for 

 its exposed sections of the newly discovered and interesting 

 deposits termed " Eheetic," the beds of which at Westbuiy, 

 Aust, Coombe Hill, Wainlode CHff, Patchway, &c., have succes- 



