VOL. XVII. (i) NOTES ON A WHITE LIAS SECTION 



NOTE ON A WHITE-LIAS SECTION AT SALTFORD, 

 NEAR BATH 



BY 

 L. RICHARDSON 



The section in the railway-cutting at Saltford near Bath, 

 shows the sequence of beds from below the White Lias, 

 through that subdivision, and thus into the Lower Lias. It is 

 the usual sequence that obtains in the neighbourhood of Bath. 



The Ostrea-Beds of the Lower Lias that cap the section 

 are obviously of the usual type, and their line of demarcation 

 from the top-bed of the White Lias (or " Sun-Bed") is very 

 distinct— the peculiar arenaceous layer noticed by Mr Winwood 

 parting them. I have elsewhere mentioned that the White 

 Lias of South Gloucestershire and the neighbourhood of Bath 

 -and Radstock usually admits of division into an upper and 

 more well-bedded portion, and a lower or more rubbly and 

 fossiliferous part. This same dual subdivision is noticeable at 

 Saltford. 



The layer noticed by Mr Winwood as such is undoubtedly 

 Cotham Marble. The clay-bed on top of it is interesting. In 

 places in the Polden Hills the equivalent clay-bed is a very 

 tough blue-black clay, and its obvious connection there with 

 the Cotham Marble suggests that the clay-bed here above the 

 Cotham Marble should be relegated to the division below 

 rather than to the White Lias proper above. The pale light blue 

 [teste Rev. H. H. Winwood] marly beds below the Cotham 

 Marble teem with Ostracoda [Darwinula liassica, etc.), and are 

 the equivalents of similar beds in the railway-cutting near 

 Chipping Sodbury, described by Professor S. H. Reynolds and 



