DORSET-SOMERSET DISTRICT. 29 
4, Coneavus- or “ Sowerbyi’’-zone 
5. Murchisonze-zone r 
6. Opalinus-zone 
7. Radians-zone (Sands) 
The Sauzei-zone is an appendage of the Humphriesianus-zone, and both are 
often but feebly developed, except in the neighbourhood of Sherborne. The 
concavus-beds represent the upper part of the Malitre of Normandy, and the true 
Am. Sowerbyi is hardly ever found in them. The most mixed Fauna occurs in the 
«* Sauzei-bed”’ of Oborne, and some might class it with the Lower Division. 
Burton Brapstock.—This name is very well known to collectors, and fossils so 
marked may come from shallow quarries and cuttings in the neighbourhood of the 
village, or from the cliff which overhangs the English Channel. Between Burton 
Castle and the neighbourhood of Bridport Harbour there is an isolated massif 
made up of the Yeovil Sands, capped by the Inferior Oolite Limestone ; and in one 
place, where the sequence is very complete, these are succeeded by a fragment of 
the Fuller’s arth. This massif presents a bold front to the English Channel, 
and has a length of one and three quarter miles, by an average width of about 
half a mile. It is unequally divided by the River Bredy, which separates “ Burton 
Cliff’ from the area to the north-west. The Inferior Oolite Limestone of Burton 
Cliff, containing the fossiliferous beds presently to be detailed, is elevated out of 
reach by reason of the great thickness of the ‘“‘ Sands,” and it is only where masses 
of this hard capping fall upon the beach that the fossils themselves come within 
reach of the hammer. Hence their relative position has not in all cases been de- 
termined with precision. Nevertheless, there is one horizon in Burton Clif which 
is so pre-eminent above all others for the number and beauty of its Gasteropoda, 
that fossils marked “Burton Bradstock” are most likely to have been derived 
from it. 
The portion of the cliff west of the River Bredy is sometimes known as the 
Bridport Cliff, but generally speaking the fossils from here are not well defined as 
to geological horizon, though they chiefly belong to the rich bed before mentioned. 
Some of the fossils marked “ Bripport’” come from here, but the term is applied 
rather loosely. The town of Bridport is at some distance from the coast, and is 
situated on the Middle Lias. 
The sands of the Inferior Oolite, or, as Oppel calls them, the sands of the Lias, 
exposed in this noble sea-cliff, consist of yellow sands with numerous indurated 
layers of bluish calciferous grit, which are sometimes continuous and at other times 
occur as nodular masses. These beds contain but few Gasteropoda, and those 
for the most part so ill-preserved that they require but trifling notice. As is so 
often the case where sedimentary accumulations are of great vertical development, 
they are comparatively barren of life, partly, perhaps, because such areas were 
Lower Division. 
