NOTES ON SOME COENBEASH SECTIONS IN DOESET 

 (By THE EEV. H. H. WOOD, F.G.S., &c., &c.) 



One of the results we hope to obtain from our new Field Club is 

 that many of our members all of them if possible may be induced 

 to examine their own neighbourhoods very carefully and bring us 

 the results of such examination, whether antiquarian or scientific- 

 What will be thus contributed to the general stock of knowledge 

 may be in some instances of no great importance in itself ; but that, 

 I trust, will be no discouragement to the discoverer. In an orchestra 

 you may find occasionally an instrument which does not contribute 

 more than a note or two to the general effect, but however insignifi- 

 cant its part would be if taken alone, it is yet indispensable for the 

 perfection of the harmony. These and such like reasons have been 

 my inducement, as they must be my apology, for bringing to your 

 notice a series of Geological Beds, which are found under somewhat 

 more favourable conditions than usual in my own neighbourhood. 



The Beds I propose to take under my special protection as part of 

 the work I hope to do for our Club are Beds which have a good 

 many difficulties to contend with. Few persons probably take up 

 any special formation without fancying that their protege has 

 not received from geologists the attention it deserves ; but hardly 

 anybody, I think, would doubt this being the case with the Corn- 

 brash. In more than one treatise on geology that I could name, the 

 formation is not even mentioned, and in most of the rest it is dis- 

 missed very summarily, as if it were too unimportant a matter to 

 waste time over. 



There are many reasons which have led to this neglect. First of 

 all, it must be confessed that in itself it is an unimportant member 

 of the Stratified rocks in England. At Weymouth there is claimed 

 for it a thickness of 40 feet, but it is very seldom that it attains to 

 any such proportions. Near Sherborne its greatest thickness does 

 not much, if at all, exceed twenty feet, whilst in other parts of 

 England where it occurs it dwindles to five or six feet, or even yet 

 more insignificant dimensions, 



