The Warminster Greenland Fossils. 263 



a micaceous sand or sandstone may be at once rejected, as they must 

 have come from the lower beds of the greensand, which are so 

 fossiliferous near Devizes. 



The fact already mentioned that none of these beds contain 

 phosphatic nodules is of the greatest importance, because it follows 

 that all fossils in brown phosphate should be excluded from the fauna 

 of the Warminster Greensand. Hitherto, nearly every collection 

 has included some of these phosphatized fossils, which are principally 

 casts ; but as they have all come from the Chloritic Marl which over- 

 lies the Rye Hill Sand, they ought not to be left among the fossils 

 of the Warminster Greensand. 



Fossils were collected from the Eye Hill Sand, from the chert 

 beds, and from the sands below, both by myself and by Mr. Rhodes, 

 the fossil-collector of the Geological Survey, and the results are 

 embodied in the following lists. From our observations it would 

 seem that most of the so-called Warminster fossils come from the 

 Rye Hill Sand, but that the large Janira quadricostata, most of 

 the larger Echinoderms, and all the large sponges, belong to the 

 chert beds, and, with the exception of Carcliaster fossarius, do not 

 range in the upper sands. Pecten asper ranges throughout from the 

 basal glauconitic sandstone to the top of the formation and into the 

 Chloritic Marl above. 



With regard to the sponges, Dr. Hinde has called my attention to 

 a manuscript written by Miss E. Benett in 1816, and preserved in 

 the library of the Geological Society, entitled " Sketches of Fossil 

 Alcyonaria from the Greensand Formation at Warminster Common 

 and in the immediate vicinity of Warminster." I am indebted to 

 Dr. Hinde for the following extracts from this MS. Miss Benett 

 says : — 



" The valley on Warminster Common where these Alcyonaria are 

 found is a poor thin peat covered with furze and heather. The 

 quarries, if so they can be called, for they seldom exceed two feet 

 deep, are on the sides of the hills, as I am informed that the stone 

 on the tops of the hills is too flinty for the purposes for which it is 

 required, and these flinty stones, as far as I have examined them, do 

 not contain any organic remains. The local name of the stone is 

 Burrs ; they are used for building and for scythe-stones : these Burrs 

 lie close to the surface in a fine yellow sand, immediately above the 

 greensand, and the nodules containing the Alcyonaria are rather 

 plentiful. 



"At Whitburn, near Clay Hill, in the same neighbourhood, the 

 greensand comes to the surface, and these fossils lie in it in the same 

 situation. At Boreham, on the east side of Warminster, the grey 

 sand is uppermost, and there we also found the same sort of fossils, 

 but they are rare ; it therefore appears to me that they belong to the 

 top of the sand formation without regard to the sort of sand." 



From this it is clear that the sponges were chiefly found to the 

 west of Warminster, and when there in 1889 I found a small quarry 

 open at Bugley in the burr-stone beds described by Miss Benett. 

 It is a fact that on this side of Warminster there is less chalcedonic 



