S. S. Buchman — The Toarcian of Bvedon Hill. 25 



and the Middle Eocene. Attempts to explain these outcrops as 

 intrusions of Trias from below, or as carted caps from above, are 

 equally opposed to the entire analogies of the neighbouring Pyrenees 

 and to all serious observation of the ophites from the Pyrenees to 

 Portugal, Italy, and Switzerland. They are hence instructive as 

 explaining the paradoxes which their identical authors have each 

 and all asserted regarding other districts of both the Alps and 

 Pyrenees. I should add that the Spanish Survey maps, although 

 fully recognizing my earlier observations, require considerable modi- 

 fication through those made since 1884:, as their able authors would 

 be the first to acknowledge. 



Till. — The Toarcian of Bredon Hill : A Reply to Prof. Hull.^ 



By S. S. BucKMAN, F.G.S. 



IN ciiticisiiig my paper Professor Hull "regrets very much to 

 have found it necessary to make these remarks." I regret it 

 too, because he only raises issues whiah have been discussed, and, 

 I hoped, settled years ago. But I fear that Professor Hull has not 

 given attention to modemi Jurassic literature. He says that Midford 

 Sands is "a name unknown to geologists in general." Whereas, as 

 the Editor points out. Professor Phillips was the author who amused 

 himself with inventing this fanciful name, to adopt my critic's 

 language. And in the 1879 edition of Sheet 44, at the foot of 

 which appears the name E. Hull, there is on the margin this legend, 

 '' G 4, Midford Sand." 



With similar neglect of literature the Professor states that " the 

 much-debated question " about the sands " was settled [in favour of 

 the Lias] by Dr. Wright in 1856, and was accepted by the Geological 

 Survey." Yet in the Survey memoirs, " The Jurassic Eocks of 

 Britain," vols, iii, iv, 1893-94, the Midford Sands are grouped with 

 the Lower Oolitic series. Sir A. Geikie says in his " Textbook of 

 Geology," 3rd ed., p. 898: "The upper stage [of the Lias] is com- 

 posed of clays and shales .... surmounted by sandy deposits, 

 which are perhaps best classed with the Inferior Oolite " — the view 

 adopted by most Jurassic geologists. 



If my critic had read my paper carefully he would have seen that 

 what I claim to have settled is quite different from what Dr. Wright 

 did. That author considered the sands of the Cotteswolds, of 

 Somerset, and of Dorset, to be all on the same horizon, a later 

 deposit than the Upper Lias Clay, but with Liassic affinities. He 

 had no idea that the sands of one district were actually earlier in 

 date than the Upper Lias Clay elsewhere. Evidently, too, the 

 Survey Officers had no idea that what they mapped as G 3 in Dorset 

 was much later than what they called G 4 in Gloucestershire, and 

 was the same horizon as some that was mapped G 5 in Somerset. 



It is my discovery that "in different localities the Sands are of 

 <3ifferent dates" (Q.J.G.S., vol. lix, p. 456). It is my discovery 



1 Geol. Mag., Dec. IV, Vol. X, No. XII, p. 541. 



