PROCEEDINGS OE THE COTTESWOLD CLUB 97 



the Lias begins. These beds are now included under the 

 term Rhsetic, as they are doubtless the representation in 

 time of strata in the Rhsetic Alps of Lombardy. The 

 determination of these beds in this country is mostly due 

 to the researches of four members of the Cotteswold 

 Club — Dr Wright, Mr C. Moore, Mr Etheridge, and the 

 Rev P. B. Brodie. In England these rocks may be 

 regarded as representing a period of transition, during 

 which the fauna of the Trias died out, and that of the 

 Lias came into existence, and in this sense they are 

 passage beds. 



At the top of the Upper Lias we come to beds which 

 are still in dispute, the problem being to determine where 

 the Lias ends and the Oolites begin. After a discussion 

 for 50 years, the advocates of drawing a hard and fast line 

 [between these systems appear to be still at variance as to 

 where this line should be drawn. Probably it is im- 

 possible to do so, for, as Professor Phillips has well 

 observed, " before the Liassic life had come to an end, 

 the Oolitic had begun," This question of passage beds 

 is a question of more than local interest, owing to strata 

 of this character becoming generally recognised between 

 most systems of rocks. 



This passage of life from one system of rocks to the 

 one above was a subject of controversy when the Club was 

 inaugurated, the dispute being between the advocates of 

 Catastrophism and Uniformity. The former taught that 

 at the close of each geological formation a catastrophe 

 occurred which put an end to the living creatures and 

 vegetation, and that in the succeeding formation there 

 was a fresh creation. The doctrine of Uniformity, with 

 which the name of Sir Charles Lyell will ever be associated, 

 taught the principle that there had been a regular and 

 uninterrupted sequence of geological phenomena, and 

 that the vast changes which have taken place in former 



