L. Richardson — Sections of Rhcetic Beds. 81 



clayey deposit from a more massive bed of sandstone, in the 

 bottom layer of wbicb casts of Schizodus are somewhat abundant. 

 In the black shales which succeed no fossils were observed, but 

 they, in common with the rest of the beds in this section, have 

 suffered much from atmospheric influences. These shales are 

 capped by a massive bed of sandstone, the equivalent of the true 

 Ehsetic Bone-bed. In North-West Gloucestershire this bed undergoes 

 numerous lithic changes ; for example, in the cliff section at Wain- 

 lode, near Gloucester, it passes from a thin hard pyritic bed, replete 

 with fish scales and teeth, into a non-ossiferous sandstone about 

 a foot thick. In the latter form it is visible in the shallow cutting 

 on the Tewkesbury and Ledbury road at Bushley, and again at 

 Bourne Bank, near Defford, where it has increased in thickness to 

 2 feet. Another exposure of the same bed is obtainable in the 

 lane cutting f mile north of Croome D'Abitot Church, and is seen 

 to be separated by 2 feet 10 inches of black shales from the 

 ' Tea-green Marls.' No more good exposures are afforded until we 

 reach Crowle ; but in the intervening area another deposit of sand- 

 stone has made its appearance, separating the black shales from the 

 Upper Keuper marls. The maximum thickness of this arenaceous 

 deposit is 1 foot, and in the railway cutting at Dunhampstead, near 

 Droitwich, permission to examine which was kindly given me by 

 the Midland Railway Company, it is about the same. On the 

 eastern borders of the county at Marl Cliff, however, no such 

 deposit is present, and the Bone-bed-equivalent, under an inch in 

 thickness, rests upon 2 feet of black shales, and this latter deposit 

 upon about 24^ feet of ' Tea-green Marls.' With a development of 

 the Bone-bed, such as that at Marl Cliff, we might, from experience, 

 have expected to see it highly ossiferous, but, excepting a very few 

 fish scales, such is not the case. Indeed, the only locality in 

 Worcestershire where a really ossiferous Bone-bed has been observed 

 is at Hob Lenoh, and Mr. R. F. Tomes, F.G.S., informed me that 

 Mr. Kershaw and he obtained from a well here the specimens now 

 in the Museum of the Victoria Institute at Worcester, presented to 

 that Museum by Mr. Tandy. 



To return to the Crowle section, 1 foot 8 inches above the Bone- 

 bed -equivalent is a series of sandstone layers separated by shaly 

 partings, collectively 9 inches in thickness, and constituting the most 

 fossiliferous deposit in the section. It was in what I consider to 

 be the equivalent deposit at Deerhurst that I found a new species 

 of Heterastrcea ; the only authentic record, I am told by Mr. Tomes, 

 of a coral from the zone of Avicida contorta. The other section to 

 be noticed is in the Duke of Orleans' grounds at Woodnorton, near 

 Evesham. At the hill locally known as the ' Blue Hill ' a bridle- 

 path passes through a cutting under a public road. Mr. Wasley, 

 Head Keeper to the Duke of Orleans, kindly conducted me to the 

 section. The bank had been smoothed down and the section was 

 rapidly becoming obscured, so that it was impossible to examine 

 the shaly deposits for fossils. The limestone bands, however, were 

 very prominent. 



DECADE IV. VOL. X. — NO. II. 6 



