The Chloritic Marl and Warminster Qreensand. 495 



"hemera" of Stauronema Carteri, and that the name should cease 

 to be applied to the Scaphites bed of Dorset and Somerset, or to 

 any bed in Devonshire. We are now of opinion that the bed 

 which lithologically resembles Chloritic Marl at Beer Head, namely, 

 No. 13 of the succession described by one of us in 1874,^ is 

 really the representative of the zone of Belemnitella plena, for it 

 contains that fossil and passes up into the basement bed of the 

 Middle Chalk. 



2. Warminster Beds. — As one of us pointed out in 1878,^ the 

 fossils of the Warminster fauna were always collected from the 

 surface of a field near Chute Farm ; but there is now an exposure 

 of the Greensand which contains these fossils in a small pit at the 

 neighbouring farm called Rye Hill (Ray Hill on the old Ordnance 

 Map). This Greensand is seen to pass up into a glauconitic marl 

 containing scattered phosphatic nodules, and in this nodule-bed at 

 another exposure Stauronema Carteri occurs, the bed gradually 

 passing up into Chalk Marl. Hence it is clear that the home of 

 the Warminster fauna is entirely below the Chloritic Marl, if that 

 be defined as the horizon of Stauronema Carteri. 



It is, moreover, important to note that the fossiliferous greensand 

 does not contain brown phosphatic nodules, only a few pale yellow 

 calcareous concretions ; consequently fossils in brown phosphate 

 purporting to come from the " Warminster Greensand " must really 

 have come from the overlying Chloritic Marl, and should therefore 

 be excluded from the list of Warminster Greensand fossils. We 

 find that many such phosphatic fossils occur in the collections of 

 different museums, and this fact has no doubt tended to increase 

 the confusion between the Warminster bed and the Chloritic Marl. 



On the other hand, in the Isle of Wight the bed of soft greensand 

 which lies below the nodule-beds, and which has by some been 

 included in the Chloritic Marl, contains Terehratella pectita, Catopygus 

 columbarius, and other Warminster species, which do not occur in the 

 Stauronema beds above. 



It} is true that in Devonshire (Beer Head, etc.) a Warminster 

 fauna is present in beds which appear to be wholly above the 

 Upper Greensand ; this, however, is probably due in part to the 

 survival of shallow-water species in the neighbourhood of a coast- 

 line, for Pecten asper and other Warminster fossils are there asso- 

 ciated with Holaster subglobosus and Ammonites Mantelli, which are 

 essentially Chalk Marl species. 



We think, therefore, that the Warminster Greensand and its 

 equivalents should be regarded as the summit of the Upper Green- 

 sand, and the Stauronema bed or Chloritic Marl as the lowest horizon 

 which can be included in the Chalk, this horizon being sometimes 

 absent through non-deposition. 



These views will entail a complete revision of the lists of Chloritic 

 Marl fossils, as well as of the Warminster greensand fossils. 



1 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xxx. p. 369. 



2 Geol. M^g. Dec. II. Vol. V. pp. 647-551, December, 1878. 



