XXXV. 



Marry Aiming, who in 1811 discovered the fossil bones of the 

 Ichthyosaurus, and afterwards of the Plesiosaurus, and who in 1825 

 discovered, for the first time in England, the remains of the Pterodactyl. 

 Then there were the names of Thomas Hawkins, who wrote the book of 

 the Great Sea Dragons, and of some of the founders of the true science 

 of geology, Buckland, Conybeare, and De la Beche, who resided in his 

 youth both at Charmouth and at Lyme, and whose first maps of the 

 Geological Survey, now sheets 21 and 22, embraced the country near 

 Lyme Regis. The hills above and on either side of the town are 

 outtiers of chalk and greensand, spurs of the Blackdown ridge in 

 Devonshire. Concretions of greensand, harder than the strata generally, 

 form the " cowstones " like the grey weathers of Wiltshire. The Cobb is 

 chiefly built of these with a facing of Portland roach. The Rhaetic beds 

 form the highest division of the Trias immediately underlying Lyme 

 Regis. At Pinney Bay, some two miles to the west of Lyme, is an 

 exposed section of White Lias, which is now reckoned as one of the 

 Rhaetic beds i.e., Trias and not Lias. Fossils are not plentiful here, but 

 may be obtained from quarries at Uplyine. Above the White Lias comes 

 the Blue Lias, 105 feet in thickness, consisting of four zones, distinguished 

 by the characteristic Ammonite of each, the PlanorUs zone, Amm, 

 Angulatus, Bucklandi, Turneri. The Blue Lias descends below the sea at 

 Lyme Regis itself, but rises again in the church cliffs east of the town. 

 Among the fossils easily found in it are Bhyneonella variabilis, Gryphaca 

 arcuata, Nautilus striata, and Lima gigantea. The Blue Lias 

 is extensively worked along the cliffs for hydraulic cement, 

 stucco, &c., and this has a good deal to do with the wasting 

 of the cliff, especially to the east of the town. Between 18Q3 and 

 1834 ninety feet in breadth of the Church Cliffs were lost, and the old 

 road to Charmouth has for the most part slipped into the sea. Above 

 the Blue Lias about 190 feet of dark slabs succeed, giving the name of 

 Black Ven, and divided into the zones of Ammonites oUusus, Avoxynotes, 

 and A. raricostatus. They contain bands of limestone, and here the first 

 Saurian remains were found. In the President's paper on the Fossil 

 Reptiles of Dorset ("Proceedings" D.N.H. and A.F.C., Vol. IX.) he 

 enumerates 7 species of Ichthyosauri, 6 Plesiosauri, 1 Pterodactylus 

 having been found at Lyme and Charmouth, whilst H. B. Woodward 

 mentions an additional species of each of the above, and 1 Deinosaur. 

 In these beds were also found the " Coprolites" described by Buckland. 

 Remains of fish are abundant ; Crustaceans and Echinoderms are also 

 found, and fine examples of Extracrinus briareus. Belemnites are plenti- 

 ful, and as early as 1826 Buckland had obtained specimens exhibiting 



