Manchester, 8., and L. Railway ^tension. 99 



tunnel and at its southern entrance. Much of the material obtained 

 from the tunnel was brought up shafts and tipped along the high 

 ground above the tunnel, and there an admixture of Lower and 

 Middle Lias fossils gave a certain amount of delight and some 

 sorrow to the collector. The same difficulty in separating the fossils 

 from the two zones was experienced at the tunnel near Chipping 

 Norton, where similar strata were excavated, and where verj' fine 

 examples of Cypricardia were obtained. At Catesby the abundant 

 Belemnites occurred in nodular layers with Ammonites capricornns ; 

 while A. margaritatus, Pecten cequivahis, Gresslya, and Cypricardia 

 were obtained from blocks of grey calcareous sandstone, belonging 

 to the Middle Lias. Mr. Thompson has recorded many other species 

 from the zone of A. margaritatus. 



A little to the south of Catesby tunnel, and east of Steppington 

 Spinney, a fine section of the Middle Lias was exposed, as follows 

 (see Fig. 1) : — 



Middle Lias. 

 Rubbly ferruginous limestone (Mai-lstone). 

 Ferruginous sandy clays, about 5 ft. 

 Blue-hearted calcareous sandstone with serpulse, much jointed and waterworn, 



3 ft. to 4 ft. 6 in. 

 Yellowish ferruginous clay. 



The gentle southerly dip of the strata is modified to the south of 

 this exposure, where the Middle Lias is brought abruptly against 

 the dark-blue clays of the Upper Lias. This fault is regarded b}'- 

 Mr. Beeby Thompson as a reversed one : I saw nothing to indicate 

 that this was the case, and, in fact, noted it as the northern portion 

 of a trough-fault which lets down a mass of Upper Lias clay between 

 two tracts of Middle Lias. The hard rock-bed with serpulse is of the 

 same character as a band noticed in the Middle Lias in a brickyard 

 at Twyford Lane, near King's Sutton.^ 



It is noteworthy that along the portion of the railway now 

 desci'ibed, which includes a part of the Lower Lias vale and of the 

 Middle Lias escarpment, no Glacial Drift was exposed. A few 

 quartzite pebbles occur in the soil along the low ground west of 

 Braunston, but these are simply relics of post-Glacial denudation. 

 It seems probable that this tract, like the Marlstone scarp of Edge 

 Hill to the south-west, was not glaciated. 



East of Charwelton Hall, at an elevation of about 500 feet, in 

 a tract bordered by somewhat higher ground near the source of the 

 river Cherwell, the Upper Lias clay is overlain by gravel 6 or 8 feet 

 thick. Bordering the stream further south the deposit has been dug 

 to a depth of 20 feet. It is a rudely-bedded sandy gravel, with 

 coarse sand, and pebbles of flint. Chalk, jasper, quartz, quartzite, and 

 ironstone ; together with derived Jurassic fossils, notably Gryplicea 

 cymbium of the Middle Lias and many Belemnites. It is interesting 

 to find that this deposit was noticed by Conybeare, who remarked : 

 "Near Charwelton there is a small accumulation of chalk flint 

 gravel, and other alluvial debris in the bottom among the hills." ^ 



1 H. B. W., " Lias of England and Wales," p. 225. 



2 " Outlines of the Geology of England and Wales," 1822, p. 248. 



