130 GEOLOGICAL EXCURSION. 



iron but more phosphoric acid. Fossils in this bed have usually 

 their test9 preserved, and are frequently of a pui-e white colour. Higher 

 up the beds are more ferruginous, but with some green cores ; above they 

 vary in condition, but are red throughout. From a bed in this quarry 

 Mr. Sharpe obtained a beautiful Star-fish, Stellaster Sharpii, now in the 

 British Museum. Specimens of casts of corals are numerous, frequently 

 with the crypts of the little boring Mollusc, Lithodomus inclusus ; Ammo- 

 nites (Murchisonce, corrugatus, &c.,) Nautilus obesus, and numerous fossils 

 of the Inferior Oolite have been collected. There is a band almost made 

 up of Astarte elegans, which band occurring in other quarries to the west 

 marks an horizon over a considerable area. 



IX. — Duston Old Quarry. — Eed building stone, Inferior Oolite. At 

 the base of this section is a green-hearted stone. In the bed above are 

 also some green-hearted stones and the band of Astarte elegans, which, 

 however, in the last quarry was much higher up. At the top the white 

 sand of the Lower Estuarine comes in. The same general series of fossils 

 as those of the Duston Ironstone Quarry have been procured from these 

 beds, and in addition wave-rippled slabs. Tooth of Megalosaurus. 



X. — Watkin's Brick Pit. — Lower Estuarine, (Inferior Oolite,) Upper 

 Estuarine (Great Oolite) junction with limestone. The upper part of the 

 white sand of the Lower Estuarine may be noted here, above which the 

 only section of the Upper Estuarine Clay exposed in the area traversed 

 is to be seen. The junction of this clay with the Great Oolite Limestone 

 may be seen near the top of the section. 



XL — Watkin's Limestone Pit. — Great Oolite. — This is a shallow 

 pit, the beds of which are less marly than those at Kingsthorpe, but 

 yield the same series of fossils. 



WM. HULL. 



BOTANICAL NOTES. 

 I have been requested to give a few notes on the plants likely to be 

 met with near Northampton by the members who attend the Annual 

 Meeting. Visitors entering the county by Market Harboro', and taking 

 the London and North-Western Kailway to Northampton, will pass 

 through pretty scenery, following the course of that branch of the Nene 

 which rises on Naseby Field ; to the right of the line, on the same side, is 

 Maidwell Dales, the most easterly habitat of Polystichum aculeatum. 

 In the sandy fields of the adjoining village of Spratton, the B^v. J. M. 

 Berkeley has gathered the rare Arnoseris pusilla ; on the left hand, eight 

 miles from Northampton, is Lamport Hall, the seat of Sir Charles 

 Isham, the garden containing some good Alpine plants, while in the 

 rectory pond Acorus calamus still grows. From Lamport to Northampton 

 the Colchicum occurs plentifully in the meadows, although a continual 

 war is waged against it by farmers, who from time to time lose cattle 

 from eating the capsules and leaves. Near Kingsthorpe, by the rail side, 

 occurs a Lepidium, which was at first referred to Smithii, but having 

 yellow anthers, shorter styles, and greener foliage, it considerably differs, 

 and may eventually prove to be some other species, coming nearer to 

 L. heterophyllum as it certainly does. 



