60 REPORT—1846. 
the Rev. D. Williams of Bleadon has sent to the Geological Society papers which 
have been published in their volume of Proceedings; my own view differs very ma- 
terially from that of Mr. Williams, and I prefer making no further remark on this 
matter. 
I pass on to the new red sandstone. The first section at Pylle-hill traverses the 
upper part of the red and pale-blue marls. Here the stratum containing the stron- 
tian nodules is displayed, and at this spot were found those beautiful crystallizations 
of strontian, specimens of which may be seen in many mineralogical collections of 
this country ; the crystals being not only remarkably large, but presenting modifi- 
cations highly interesting to the crystallographer. The Ashton cutting does not 
touch the red marls, but is limited entirely to the sandstones beneath the marls. 
On the drawing the layers of stone are marked with dark-red lines, and the detailed 
description also inserted. The Uphill and Puriton sections show the red and blue 
marls; and the only remark at present necessary is, that in the Uphill section the 
strontian and gypsum of other localities are here replaced by nodular cavernous con- 
cretions of minute crystals of carbonate of lime. 
I now proceed to the consideration of the lias strata: the lower divisions of the 
lias are seen in three of the sections. The general features of the Pylle-hill and 
Uphill sections are the same, and the organic remains usually accompanying these 
beds are found in each. In the Puriton section the corresponding beds are ex- 
panded to a much greater thickness than any other with which I am acquainted in 
the Bristol district. Very few fossils have been obtained on this spot, and the shaly 
clays intervening between the limestones are so thickened and are so uniform in 
composition, that the symmetrical structure of the mass causes the face of the cliff 
to present a series of very smooth divisional planes in two sets, the direction and dip 
of which are set forth in the details of the section. 
I am unwilling to close these remarks without adverting to the classification which 
M. Agassiz has adopted for the position of the bone-bed of the Aust cliff. By this 
naturalist, and by other eminent persons also, the Aust bone-bed is classed as a part 
of the Triassic series, in consequence of the presence in each of the same species of 
fishes. The facts I wish to state, bearing on this question, are these: the strata 
of the lias, which are beneath the white lias limestones, of which lower division the 
Cotham marble forms the upper bed and the bone-bed the lowest, were deemed by 
Mr. Conybeare sufficiently characteristic as a group of sedimentary deposits, irre- 
spective of its organic contents, to merit a distinguishing name—the lower marls. 
This group then contains throughout its whole extent the same, or apparently 
the same, fish-scales and fish-teeth as are preserved in the bone-bed. Besides the 
occasional occurrence of such relics in the clays of this group, thereare in the Aust 
cliff three calcareous layers above the bone-bed containing these remains abun- 
dantly. In the Pylle-hill and Uphill strata occur the same number of such beds, 
and the latter section affords but a poor equivalent of the bone-bed. In the Puriton 
sections there is one, and probably more than one calcareous stratum yielding fish- 
scales, and the bone-bed is very faintly exhibited. Further I am not aware of these 
remains above the Cotham marble. There is also a Pecten peculiar to this group, 
but I cannot state the species, as I believe it to be undescribed. Should any one be 
disposed to connect the whole group of lower marls with the bone-bed and remove 
them from the lias, there would arise this objection: the Cotham bed, the highest 
limit of the lower marls, contains not only the fish-scales, but insects of the same spe- 
cies as are found in the white limestones above, and the same likewise as were found 
by Mr. Edmund Higgins of Clifton at Aust, at a distance of only ten feet above the 
bone-bed. Moreover, Mr. Higgins has discovered the Cypris with plants in the 
white limestones in association with the elytra of insects, anda few weeks ago I dis- 
covered in the Pylle-hill cutting, in the midst of the lower marls, the Cypris with 
the plant Naiadites lanceolata. 1 am therefore inclined to think that the whole 
group of strata, including the Cotham marble above and the bone-bed at the base, 
should be treated as a subordinate member of the lias formation, and that no portion 
of the same should be considered as an equivalent of any part of the Triassic group. 
The decision of the question must however depend upon a much closer examination 
of the organic contents than I have been able to devote to them. 
