512 APPENDIX B. 



shewn under the ordinary silt derived from floods, considerable 

 breadths of shell deposits, containing Paludina vivipara and P. 

 impura, Limnsea peregra, and other denizens of marshy ponds and 

 shallow waters, and small oolitic gravel under the whole. Thus 

 in reality we have three gravel deposits, the lowest being irregular 

 and limited, and probably derived by flood action from the margins 

 of older valley terraces 20 feet above the present river, not brought 

 down by great inundations the whole distance from the Cotswolds. 

 As yet no remains of the mammoth or his contemporaries have been 

 found in these lowest gravels ; whether in the larger excavations 

 likely to be made in the valley below Oxford such may occur is 

 very worthy of attention. 



INFEKIOR OOLITE. 



Additional instances of the occurrence of Inferior oolite fossils 

 in the district watered by the Cherwell and its branches have been 

 brought to notice by Mr. Beesley, who has successfully explored 

 the vicinity of Banbury. He finds at Coomb Hill near Barford 

 St. John, and at Blackingrove near Barford St. Michael, a con- 

 siderable number of fossils, among which Pholadomya fidicula and 

 Terebratula fimbria maybe cited as frequent in the Inferior oolite of 

 Cheltenham. With Mr. Stutterd, whose large collection, as well as 

 part of that of the late Mr. Faulkner, is now in the Oxford Museum, 

 he obtains from Milcomb Hill, a locality farther west, Ammonites 

 Parkinsoni and Pholadomya fidicula. In both localities several 

 other shells occur which are known in Inferior oolite, but some 

 of these are also found through such considerable ranges of the 

 Bath oolite group, as to be insufficient though favourable witnesses. 

 On the whole, it seems probable that these traces both of the 

 upper and lower parts of the Inferior oolite in the region between 

 Cherwell and Evenlode are the first steps toward a considerable 

 extension of the space to be allotted to those deposits. 



THE RED SANDSTONES. (See p. 99.) 



The colouring matter of these rocks is usually in small quantity, 

 thinly investing clear grains of quartz. The following analysis of 



