ee 
VOL. XVI. (2) LOWER LIAS AT FRETHERNE 135 
ON THE 
SECTION--OF LOWER LIAS, AT HOCK. CLIFF, 
FRETHERNE, GLOUCESTERSHIRE 
BY 
L. RICHARDSON, F.R.S.E. 
This is not the first time that this section has received 
attention. As early as 1822 George Cumberland had 
recorded that: : 
“* We can walk at low-water on the blue lias at Fretherne, to 
the extent of half-a-mile, as on an extensive level floor, and 
there see enormous ammonites under our feet, some ex- 
ceeding four feet in diameter.” * 
In 1853 the cliff-section formed the subject of a short 
essay by the Rev. P. B. Brodie, who wrote that it was of 
“Lower Lias overlying the ‘Ostrea-Bed,’ equivalent to certain 
other portions of the series in the Vale of Gloucester, as at 
Hatherley, the Leigh, Piffs Elm, Hardwicke, etc... .... 
This cliff, however, is particularly interesting, from the 
occurrence of a new and fine species of the brachiopod, 
Orbicula Townshendi (named after the discoverer), and one 
of the Foraminifera which I lately found, and which Mr 
Rupert Jones believes will prove to be a true Vummutlite.” ? 
In 1883 W. C. Lucy contributed some “Notes on 
Hock Crib, Fretherne,” and illustrated them with some 
coloured sections.? His stratigraphical and paleonto- 
logical remarks are somewhat fuller than Brodie’s. He 
‘* submitted several pieces of the beds to my friend Mr Thomas 
Slatter, of Evesham, who has studied the Foraminifera of 
the Lower Lias, and he failed to find a true Vummulite. In 
No. 5 [bed 10 of the present record on page 140] and 13 
[18] he found several Foraminifera [including] Znvolutina 
liassica.” 
1 Trans. Geol. Soc., ser. 2, vol. i. (1822), p. 370. 
2 Proc. Cotteswold Nat. F. C., vol. i. ([1847-] 1853), pp. 241-245. 
3 Lbid., vol. viii., pt. 2 (for 1883-84), pp. 131-133. 
