204 



Notes on the JRhcetic Section, Newbridge Bill. By Rev. H. H. 

 Winwood, M.A., F.G.S. Read Feb. 15, 1871. 



One of the main objects of a club like our own is to observe and 

 place on record any local peculiarity, whether in Archaeology, 

 Natural History, or Geology, which may from time to time claim 

 especial attention in its neighbourhood. The numerous Railways 

 which are everywhere extending like a network throughout the 

 land afford the gi'eatest assistance to the science of Geology, by 

 exposing in their deep cuttings and tunnels sections hitherto 

 covered up, and thereby supplying many a missing link in that 

 geological chain which careful and accurate observers are so patiently 

 and perseveringly welding together. It is principally owing to the 

 deep cuttings in our neighbourhood that Moore, Wright, Etheridge, 

 Dawkins, and other patient workers in this branch of science, 

 have been enabled to discover in the comparatively small space 

 of about 35 feet one of these missing links ; i.e., certain beds 

 which contain a fauna peculiar to, and which are the representatives 

 of, other beds in the Austrian Alps, some 3000 or 4000 feet in 

 thickness, called the Rhoetic beds.* The following notes have 

 reference to the representatives of these important beds which 

 have lately been exposed on the new line of Railway between Bath 

 and Mangotsfield. Until our friend, Mr. Moore, so well known 

 for his labours, gave his attention to this particular formation, the 

 exact position of that geological page, so rich in its contents, was 

 hitherto undetermined in this country. It may not be amiss 

 therefore to allude to the literature of this subject, redounding, as 

 the discovery does, so much to the acumen of our local geologist. 

 In the year 1859, Dr. Wright, of Cheltenham, with a view to 

 determine the proper position of ceilain Lower Lias beds, examined 

 the most typical localities in the counties where those beds were 

 exposed. The results of this examination he brought before the 

 Geological Society of London in the beginning of the following 

 year (vide " Quart. Joum.," vol. xvi., p. 374). In that important 

 and elaborate communication he adopted a series of Ammonite 



* Mr. Etheridge estimates their maximum thickness in England as 100 ft., 

 including the gray, green, and white marls of the upper Trias. 



