126 PROCEEDINGS COTTESWOLD CLUB 1913 



Each of these Stages has been sub-divided into " zones." 

 A list of these zones will be found in the writer's " Handbook 

 to the Geology of Cheltenham " (1904), Table ii. 



Lower Lias. — The blue clay, which, over the whole of 

 the district under consideration, underlies the deposits of sand 

 and gravel, or the " Superficial Deposits " as they are often 

 called, belongs to the Lower Lias. 



These blue clays dip under the newer rocks of Leck- 

 hampton Hill. At the present time (1913) they are well 

 exposed in small pits at Leckhampton Station and at the 

 neighbouring, but recently-closed, Cotswold Potteries. 



Towards the upper part of the Lower Lias, namely, in 

 the portion or zone called the " Striatus-Beds," Umestone- 

 nodules are abundant and contain a very interesting and 

 distinctive series of fossils. 



The succeeding zone of deposit, the Capricornus-Zone, 

 contains two bands of impure limestone — which were formerly 

 very well exposed at Pilford (10 on the map, plate XVL) — 

 and becomes increasingly sandy as it is traced upwards. The 

 lower portion of the Middle Lias, the Lower Margaritatus- or 

 Algovianus-Beds, is also very sandy, so that as regards rock- 

 structure the Lower Lias graduates into the Middle Lias, and 

 this makes the precise line of demarcation between the two 

 Stages, in the absence of characteristic ammonites, very diffi- 

 cult to determine. 



The details given below concerning certain exposures of 

 the Lower Lias may be of interest. 



1. Evidence for the Oblusus-Zone has been obtained here. 



2. A trace of gravel was observed on blue clay that yielded the 



ammonite Microceras subplanicosta (Oppel) and belemnites. 

 Formerly there were extensive clay-pits on the Fairfield Estate 

 and at Leckhampton Station. It was from these pits that Ralph 

 Tate obtained many of the fossils mentioned in his useful paper 

 "On the Paleontology of the Junction-Beds of the Lower and 

 Middle Lias in Gloucestershire." The clays exposed belonged 

 to the Armains-Valdani-Zones or the Jamesoni-Zone of Tate.* 



3. The small pit at the Cotswold Potteries (3) is in the Valdani-Cla.ys. 



I Quart. Joum. Geol. Soc, vol. xxvi. (1870), pp. 394-408 : see also Richardson, id., vol. Ixiii. 

 (1906), p. 577 (footnote). 



