103 
been expected in the cutting; but it presents features of an 
abnormal kind which have not previously been observed by the 
writer. Instead of the ordinary coarse earthy Oolitic Rock, of a 
yellow colour familiar in the Inferior Oolite ; there occurs here 
a hard Silicious rock of a blue and grey colour, so hard that it 
rings under the hammer and is very difficult to break. The 
strata are not however uniformly of this description, for here and 
there in the cutting the beds present more of an Oolitic character ; 
but this constantly passes into the hard crystalline rock described 
which is the predominating feature in the cutting. In places 
_ these harder masses rise up from beneath in bosses of a colour 
resembling Mountain Limestone, for which at first sight they 
might be mistaken, but the fossils they contain do not agree with 
this, and the way in which the same beds pass from an unmis- 
takable Oolitic character into the Silicious structure described, 
seems to show, that the beds are merely Inferior Oolite under 
exceptional conditions. From the frequent exposures of 
Mountain Limestone at points not far distant, probably that 
formation lies at no great depth beneath this road cutting, and 
the writer would venture it as a suggestion only, that the 
Inferior Oolite, where it approaches the Limestone, may, as in the 
ease of the Lias, assume abnormal conditions. The special features 
described are evidently not confined to one spot, for in the 
_ railway cuttings opposite Hapsford. the writer has since observed 
the Inferior Oolite presenting the same exceptional character. 
VALLIS., 
Taking a westerly course along the flank of the Mendips, the 
_ writer took the opportunity of renewing an old acquaintance with 
the romantic surroundings of the Vallis, which, both in their 
7 picturesque and geological features, have been made very familiar 
to the members of this Club in the writings of Mr. Moore and 
others. Under the circumstances any reference to this locality 
aight very well have been omitted from these notes, but in going 
