330 The Geology of Devizes. 
the Upper and Lower Gault; but as it is now universally admitted 
that there is no such comprehensive group as a Middle Cretaceous 
or “ Greensand” formation, it is illogical and inconsistent to speak 
of an “ Upper ” and “ Lower Greensand.” 
The suggestion made by Godwin-Austen in 1850, and more 
recently (1870) urged by Professor Judd, that the French name of 
Neocomian should be adopted for the Lower Greensand is equally 
unfortunate, because the true Neocomian is the equivalent of the 
Wealden, which underlies the Lower Greensand, and the name used 
by the French for the beds which represent our Lower Greensand is 
Aptien. Moreover a good name had been proposed for the British | 
groups before Godwin-Austen wrote, for Fitton in 1847 had proposed 
to call the Lower Greensand Vectine, from Vectis, the Roman name 
of the Isle of Wight; and nowhere is the group better developed 
or more conveniently exposed for study than in that island. 
This is the name I have adopted, only altering it to the other 
adjectival form of Vectian; in it we have a short well-sounding 
name which does not convey any erroneous ideas and is derived from 
a well-known locality. 
But, when we have abolished the term Lower Greensand, we 
cannot continue to speak and write of an Upper Greensand; we 
must either revert to the original names of Gault and Greensand, 
or we must find a new name, and first of all we must enquire 
whether the Gault and Greensand are separate members of the 
Cretaceous series, or whether they are only different parts or litho~ 
logical facies of one formation—the “ Gault ” of one locality passing 
into the “‘ Greensand ” of another. 
In this enquiry the fossils of the Devizes Sandstone afford valuable 
assistance. If the Greensand always contained a similar set of fossils 
and the Gault always held a different set, and if the characteristic 
fossils of the one were never found in the other, then there would 
be good reason for regarding them as distinct subdivisions of the 
Cretaceous series. This, however, is not the case: at Folkestone, 
where the Gault is so well exposed and so rich in fossils, there is 
nothing which can be compared lithologically with the Sandstone 
of Devizes, but most of the Devizes fossils are found in the upper 
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