212 PROCEEDINGS COTTESWOLD CLUB 191 1 



In a quarry (6), which is becoming rapidly overgrown, 

 situated a mile and a quarter to the south-south-west of the 

 above, siliceous Chipping-Norton Limestone is exposed that is 

 weathering at the top into a white sand. Two or three feet of 

 similar sandy limestones are to be seen in an old quarry near 

 Rollright-Heath Farm (7) and about 8 feet were exposed in a 

 temporary excavation marked 8. 



Hook-Norton Railway-Cutting Section (No. 9.) — 

 Three quarters of a mile still further east is the Hook-Norton 

 Tunnel, which is approached at both ends by means of deep 

 cuttings, In both cuttings excellent sections have been avail- 

 able showing the junction of the Upper-Lias clay with the 

 succeeding Oolite, and also the sequence as far up as the 

 Exelissa-himestones of the Neferan-Beds. Hence the sections 

 are very important, and have, therefore, been studied by several 

 geologists, while several palaeontologists have investigated 

 certain members of the fauna. 



The banks of the approach-cutting to the southern (or 

 Duckpool-Farm) end of the tunnel are, for the most part, over- 

 grown ; but in the northern approach-cutting there is still 

 a very good section. This is mainly due to the fact that huge 

 masses of Oolite are continually becoming detached from the 

 parent mass, and slipping forward, occasion much concern to 

 those responsible for the safety of the travellers on the railway 

 below. 



T. Beesley, the first to describe the sections, thought that 

 the whole of the Oolite in this northern approach-cutting 

 belonged to the MuychisoncB-Zone of the Inferior Oolite, and 

 that it was comparable with the development that obtains at 

 Ebrington and Bredon Hills.' He gives a long list of fossils, 

 and, in his account of the cutting on the south side of the 

 tunnel, notes that the sequence there is from the Upper Lias 

 to the Great Oolite.^ 



Mr Walford published a more detailed record in 1883,^ 

 and so closely does it agree with the present one, that I have 

 retained his numbers for the beds. The beds about those 

 numbered 22-24 vary considerably, as might be expected in 

 the neighbourhood of a Conglomerate-Bed that marks an 

 important non-sequence. 



1 Proc. Geol. Assoc, vol. v., No. 4 {1877), p. 170. 



2 Ibid., p. 172. 



3 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc, vol. xxxix. (1883), pp. 228-231 and 239-242. 



