VOL. XVI. (3) EXCURSION—STINCHCOMBE HILL 215 
became damper, thus indicating a more argillaceous deposit. The 
Cotteswold Sands would appear to be about 230 feet thick here, and 
their date vartabilis-Lilli. The Upper-Lias clay is of the ordinary sort 
—blue, with occasional hard limestone-nodules. Its precise thickness 
is doubtful, but it must be at least 30 to 4o feet and of dzfrontis- 
falciferi hemerz. The Upper-Lias clays were proved during the 
sinking of a well (marked now by the wind-mill) at the corner of the 
field in the hollow between the Yew-tree Inn and the hill, and there- 
from have been obtained several very fine ammonites (Harpoceras 
falciferum, etc.) 
Turning at the Yew-tree Inn along the Oldhill Lane, the large 
quarry in the Marlstone on the left-hand side of the lane was entered. 
The Marlstone is from 15 to 20 feet thick in this neighbourhood, and 
on account of its durability has given rise to a marked tabulated 
promontory, which is very clearly seen from the railway between 
Stonehouse and Stroud, running far out into the vale. 
The Marlstone has been very extensively quarried in the past, 
but now only two quarries are actually in work.* The most satisfactory 
section is that reached from Cam by turning at the Yew-tree Inn along 
Oldhill Lane, when it will be noticed on the left-hand side. The 
Marlstone, Moore reckoned to be about 20 feet thick: ‘‘thicker,” 
wrote Charles Moore, ‘‘ than in any other part of the West of England 
with which we are acquainted.”? Although specimens of Zerebratula 
punctata, Sow., Rhynchonella tetrahedra, (Sow.) Rh. amalthei, Quen- 
stedt, Pseudopecten egquivaluis (Sow.), Pteria ineguivalvis (Sow.), 
Cardinia crassissima (Sow.), Gryphaea gigantea, Sow., Syncyclonema 
sp., Zrochus sp., Serpula sp., and Paltopleuroceras spinatum (Brug.), 
have been procured. Rhynchonella amalthei and belemnites are the 
only fossils that occur in any abundance. The fossils that have been 
collected here have been distributed as having come from Cam, 
Stinchcombe or Newnham (or ‘‘ Newent’’). 
Above the Marlstone, Moore saw some five feet of Upper-Lias 
limestones and clays, but did not notice any representative of 
the Lepfena-Shales or of the Fish- or Insect-Beds. Messrs Beeby 
Thompson and W. D. Crick, however, recognised in ‘‘a red sandy 
clay just above the rock bed with Ammonites acutus in it” the 
equivalent of the ‘‘ Transition-Bed ” (acufi hemera) of the Midlands, 
obtaining the characteristic ammonite from it.3 
The Fish-Bed, of which Charles Moore failed evidence at ‘* The 
Quarry,” is well-developed at Churchdown and Alderton Hills, and 
corresponds to the richly fish-containing shales that occur immed- 
iately above the Jet Rock on the Yorkshire coast. Studied in con- 
nection with the sequence at Stinchcombe the difference in the 
1 H. B. Woodward, “ The Jurassic Rocks of Britain—The Lias of England and 
Wales (Yorkshire excepted),” vol. iii (1893), p. 215. L. Richardson, Proc. Geol. Assoc., 
vol. xx, pt. 7 (1908), p. 529. 
2 C. Moore, Proc. Somerset Arch. and Nat. Hist. Soc., vol. xiii (1871), p. 146. 
3 B. Thompson, Rep. Britt. Assoc. for 1891, p. 350. 
