vol.. XVII. (2) NORTH AND MID COTTESWOLDS 263 



The gravel-pits near Moreton-in-the-Marsh and Wolford 

 have been frequently described' — the latter as having yielded 

 red chalk. The old pit, near Pepperwell Farm, probably that 

 in which Buckland found the first pebbles of that rock in the 

 Vale of Moreton, is quite overgrown, but at a distance of about 

 200 yards, and at a slightly lower level, a pit has been opened 

 showing about 12 feet of sand with a few small fragments of 

 oolite, Drift pebbles and flints in seams. 



In the gravel-pit at Bledington, half a mile west of King- 

 ham Junction, I observed, at about 4 feet from the surface, 

 a rounded " boulder " of fine siliceous sand, about 2 X i^ X ij 

 feet. A wedge or " pile " of hard stony clay appeared to 

 connect a bed of the same material at the surface with a sandy 

 clay under the intervening beds of gravel and quartzose sand, 

 as though a narrow channel had been cut through the gravel 

 and afterwards filled. The gravel consists largely of water- 

 worn Oolitic detritus with a few flints and Drift pebbles 

 streaked by thin seams of sand similar to that of which the 

 boulder is composed. Some large fresh flints have, however, 

 been dug out under a hard ferruginous band at the lowest part 

 of the excavation, where the water-level was reached, and 

 gravel of a different character may exist below. 



On approaching Kingham it is observed that the Drift no 

 longer contains white and red chalk : the cherts, limestones, 

 and other Vale of Moreton pebbles become fewer, and the boul- 

 ders are no longer represented by Carboniferous limestone 

 and igneous rocks, but by subangular blocks of fine-grained 

 grit, resembling sarsen-stones. These boulders are described 

 by Prof. Hull as by no means rarely scattered over the Vale 

 of Moreton, and as increasing numerically towards the north.' 



Although ■ pebbles of grit are not uncommon in the 

 Stour-Evenlode gravels, the larger boulders are now rarely 

 seen, and only four are now visible— one each at Bowl and 

 Frescot, one near Evenlode, described by Dr C. Callaway,^ and 

 one found some years ago on Merriscourt Farm, in the parish 

 of Lyneham. The last has been removed to Sarsden House 



1 Bucklaad, Reliq. DUuv. (1823), pp. 250-1 ; Lucy, Proc. Cottesw. Nat. F.C., vol. v., pp. 93-95, 

 I0I-2 ; ibid., vol. vii., p. 79 ; S. S. Buckman, ibid., vol. xiv., pp. 111-8 ; Trans. Geol. Soc., vol. v. 

 (1821), p. 518. See also F. W. Harmer, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. Ixiii. (1907), p. 500. 



2 Mem. Geol. Surv., " Geology Country around Cheltenham," 1857, p. 96: Quart. Journ. Geol. 

 Soc, vol. xi,, p. 493. 3 Geol. Mag. (1905) p. 218. 



