60 F. L. Kitchin and J. Pringle — 



It is necessary to look further before the local correlation of the 

 section in Harris's Pit can be completed. In a long-abandoned 

 pit situated at about 900 yards north-west of that locality and some 

 300 yards north of Shenley House (No. 9), the Upper Gault Clay is 

 present to a thickness of about 20 feet. Here the lowest beds, 

 as above described in the section at Garside's Pit, were found in 

 similar development overlying the indurated top of the current- 

 bedded Lower Greensand ; thus, a basal bed consisting of yellowish- 

 brown and greenish clayey sand with some pebbles (and with iron- 

 stone courses), here less than a foot in thickness ; the clay above 

 it containing white nodules, red-stained at its base ; and the 

 succeeding crumbled and imperfectly bedded grey clay. Above the 

 lowest 8 feet of clay the section is entirely obscured by slips, but at 

 a distance of about 15 feet above the basal bed a pale marly clay 

 with blocky fracture yielded numerous fossils. These include 

 abundant specimens of SchloenbacMa varicosa (J. de C. Sow.) and 

 a well-keeled SchloenbacMa similar to one found near the top at 

 Harris's Pit ; a Hoplites showing a smooth stage in an aurit'US-\Sk% 

 stock ; another species of the S2:)lendens type (in the broad sense) ; 

 Inoceramus concentricus Park., and numerous large examples of 

 Inoceramus sulcatus Park. This assemblage indicates a position 

 corresponding with Bed IX of Price at Folkestone, and with the 

 clay showing similar lithological and faunal characters at the top 

 of Harris's Pit. 



Since the Gault below this fossiliferous bed, at the locality just 

 described, shows such a marked contrast in all its characters to the 

 beds now in corresponding j)osition at Harris's Pit, there are no 

 grounds for correlating them. If the mass of Gault in Harris's Pit 

 were in a normal position this contrast would be difficult to explain. 

 Since we have shown it to be inverted the explanation is simple. 

 The beds there below the clay containing hioceranms sulcatus and 

 SchloenbacMa varicosa represent a still higher part of the series, of 

 which a portion, only a few feet thick, is present at the top of the 

 section north of Shenley House. 



We infer that the Gault in situ at Shenley Hill was originally 

 some 40 feet thick at the most ; and we consider that the presence 

 of the fauna of Bed IX of Folkestone such a short distance up in 

 the series makes it certain that only the Upper Gault is represented 

 here. This reading of the facts is supported by the ascertained 

 thickness of the formation where it is fully developed farther to 

 the south, even when allowance is made for a general thickening 

 of the sediments in that direction. 



The evidence thus shows that the date of the overlap may well 

 coincide approximately with that of the Middle Junction Bed 

 (VIII) at Folkestone. The character of the lowest bed is such as 

 would result from its formation upon a sandy bottom in shallow 

 water under the action of relatively strong currents. The trans- 

 gression would imply a deepening of the sea-floor, so that these 



