TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 75 
deposit is conjectured to have been formed in deeper water, and at a greater distance 
from land, than the Stonesfield slate in Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire*, 
The great oolite of Ancaster gives the following section :— 
ft. in. 
1. Blue clay, in which I could detect no fossils; near 
the top it is traversed by a thin dingy white 
kind of marl, with a few imperfect impressions 
DC IMEMibec cacti sere sorsclataacetedsl Riacesseste tt eee 12 0 
May this not be the representative of the Bradford clay which in Wilts imme- 
diately overlies the great oolite, and often separates the minor subdivisions ? 
2. Ragstone—coarse shelly hard oolite .............++ 5 0 
3. Sandy, soft (rarely shelly) oolitic freestone, va- 
riously coloured, yellow, pink and white, which, 
from its variegated hues, gives it a beautiful ap- 
pearance. This constitutes the serviceable build- 
Ing stone, and yields very large blocks ........... 17 6 
4, Hard shelly oolite, generally of a blue colour, not 
Worked ΠΥ ΠΝ ζὐξννεἰ εὐ εὐωνόξενέύς cates 16 0 
5. Soft white stone below, depth uncertain ........... 
Total feet .........ccce0e 50 6 
In an adjoining quarry the strata above the freestone are thicker, the blue clay 
(No. 1) amounts to a thickness of twenty feet, and is succeeded by a hard blue 
stone, containing many shells, especially a large species of Avicula, and broken frag. 
ménts of carbonized plants, but too imperfect to determine. There is a soft, yellow 
sandy band at its base, also full of similar vegetable remains: the total thickness of 
these two beds does not exceed two feet. The white rag, equivalent to No. 2 in the 
previous section, is only 1 foot 3 inches thick, and reposes on the freestone. The 
requent remains of plants, and their rarity in Gloucestershire and Somersetshire, in 
the great oolite, seem to indicate a closer affinity, zoologically, with the Yorkshire 
oolites. Mr. Lycett and Mr. Morris identify very few of the great oolite fossils of 
the north with those of the south of England. 
The inferior volite offers in particular places much analogy to that of Gloucester- 
shire. Green’s quarry at Denton, near Grantham, gives the subjoined section :— 
ft. in. 
1. Rubble (about) .......... BEM Oi ς Yak Ao Ley 2 0 
2 “'OoKte mall 7.0). a ej ΡΝ 4or5 0 
3. Soft, shelly, white and yellow, though sometimes 
brown oolite, not quarried deep. 
The oolite marl (No. 2) is nearly identical with that near Cheltenham, though 
rather darker in colour, and much reduced in thickness. It is loaded with corals as 
inGloucestershire, and many of the species, as far as could be judged, seem to be iden- 
tical. Some parts of the bed are softer and full of shells, among which were procured 
several species of Cerithium, Nerinee, Natica and other genera, Natica macrostomat 
is abundant, and a species of Rostellaria occurs, though rarely ; the edges of the beds 
have been much water-worn, probably by currents, and the shells are exposed in relief 
and are much weathered. Mr. Lycett examined the small collection procured, and 
he states, that although the greater number were new to him, yet the tendency of 
the others was decidedly towards the inferior oolite, and agree specifically with some 
which are common in the Cotswolds; such, for instance, as the Natica adducta 
(an oolite marl shell, but also found in the great and inferior oolite of Yorkshire), 
Trigonia striata from the freestone and gryphite grit; while at the same time there is 
a new species of Acteonina, Monodonta, &c. 
In the inferior oolite of the Cotswold Hills, corals are more or less distributed 
* Thad not read Captain Ibbetson’s and Mr. Morris’s paper on the Collyweston slate, 
published in the Reports of the British Association for 1847 , until after the present notice 
‘was drawn up, and it appears that we had independently arrived at the same conclusion, 
* + Mr. Lycett considers this to belong to a new species, which is a highly characteristic 
’ one in the oolite marl of Gloucestershire. 
