82 PROCEEDINGS COTTESWOLD CLUB 1910 



which the component pebbles are frequently coated with iron- 

 oxide, while the interstices between them are filled up with the 

 same material. In other words, there are distinct signs of a 

 non-sequence between the Opalinijorme- and underlying beds 

 in many of the sections in the northern portion of the South 

 Cotteswolds. 



(xxv.) ScissMm-Beds {scissi). — These beds have been traced 

 as far south as Sodbury, and are usually considerably-arenaceous 

 limestones with specimens of Gresslya, Pholadomya, Volsella 

 and Pinna of very nearly if not the same species as occur 

 higher up in the discitce deposits. Indeed, it is noteworthy how 

 much the 5ciss«m-Bed fauna resembles that of the Lower 

 Trigonia- and Buckmani-Gnts. The beds are well-exposed 

 at Wotton Hill, Nibley Knoll, and the top of the " Long- 

 wood" section, where Mr Charles Upton has collected 

 Tmetoceras scissum (Benecke), and several other interesting 

 ammonites. 



The upper surface of the Scissum-Beds frequently shows 

 signs of erosion that presumably took place during the pause 

 in the process of deposition that evidently preceded the initia- 

 tion of the necessarily changed conditions that favoured 

 the formation of the Lower Limestone. 



(xxiv.) Lower Limestone (early Murchisonce) : now — 1910 — 

 dated as Ancolioccms.^ — At many places in the neighbourhood 

 of Cheltenham, the Scissuin-Beds are almost immediately suc- 

 ceeded by the pisolitic beds of the Pea-Grit, but in the South 

 Cotteswolds there follow oolitic limestones measuring, at 

 Selsley Hill, some 38 feet. These beds have been actively- 

 worked on Selsley Hill, where many of the component strata 

 are " dapple-beds," that is, limestones with pebbles of very 

 similar material, which are evidently the product of a pene- 

 contemporaneous erosion. The fossils, also, are very few 

 in number, and only the small specimens (gastropods) are 

 at all well-preserved, and even they are rolled; while the 

 larger forms, as a rule, are represented by fragments only. 



(xxiii.) Pea-Grit [Murchisonce). — The Pea-Grit is first 

 definitely recognizable in coming north from Bath in the large 

 quarry in Coaley Wood, but it is probable that the thin rubbly 

 layer at Wotton Hill and the Nunnery-Lane Quarry, near 



I S. S. Buckman, F.G.S., Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc, vol. l.\vi. (1910), p. 79. 



