Dr. Henry Hicks — The Age of the Morte Slates. 105 



cutting show only thin gravelly loam four or five feet, or gravelly 

 loam over gravel and sand six feet. By Widmore Farm there is 

 ten or twelve feet of angular gravel and fine gravel and sand. The 

 gravel consists of pebbles of quartz, quartzite, and Oolite, and but 

 few of flint, the flint being mostly subangular. At the south end of 

 Finmere Plantation the Boulder-clay appears from beneath a covering 

 of sand and gravel, with a strong spring issuing at the junction. The 

 relations of these Drifts are thus reversed, but the overlying gravel 

 differs from the Boulder-gravel which elsewhere appeared beneath 

 the Boulder-clay. The Boulder-clay here contains large boulders 

 of Oolite, but these are not noticeable in the gravel. Gravel again 

 occurs over the Boulder-clay at the southern end of the cutting. 

 For some distance by the Barrow near Bartonhill Farm, west of 

 Chetwode, Chalky Boulder-clay was the only formation exposed. 

 South-west of Rosehill Farm it rested on fine buff sand, and a short 

 distance beyond the Oxford Clay appeared. 



No evidence of Cornbrash was found in any of the cuttings, the 

 outcrop of this formation being concealed between Newton Purcell 

 and Barton Hartshorn, Finmere and Mixbury, by Drifts. 



Onwards by Twyford no sections of interest were exposed : only 

 thin deposits of gravel and gravelly loam were seen on Oxford Clay. 

 In this shallow drift a block of grey wether, 2 ft. x 1 ft. 6 in. x 1 ft., 

 was found in the cutting north-east of Charndon Lodge Farm. 

 There 10 or 15 feet of grey shaly Oxford Clay were to be seen. This 

 contained a few pyritized Ammonites, Cerithiuni, Leda, and small 

 examples of Qryphcea dilatata. The fossils are such as characterize 

 the middle portion of the Oxford Clay. In Decoy Pond Wood the 

 Oxford Clay was opened to a depth of 15 to 20 feet, and yielded 

 medium-sized specimens of Qryphcea dilatata. As we approach the 

 brickyard near the Quainton Road Junction, larger forms of this 

 fossil are found, and at the brickyard itself they occur in great 

 abundance. The intermediate shallow cuttings showed no sections 

 of interest, and beyond an occasional thin gravelly soil, as south-east 

 of Leewood Farm, no Drift was observed between Twyford and 

 Quainton Road. 



It should be mentioned that on the railway embankment near 

 Steeple Claydon, a large specimen oi Ammonites Hutlierlandice, together 

 with A. Lamberti in the same block, was picked up, evidently derived 

 from one of the adjacent cuttings in the Oxford Clay. These and 

 other fossils were identified by Mr. G. Sharman and Mr. E. T, Newton. 



II. — The Age of the Morte Slate Fossils. 

 By Henry Hicks, M.D., F.E.S., Pres. Geol. Soc. 



IN the last number of the Geological Magazine Dr. J. W. 

 Gregory has undertaken to give an opinion on the whole of 

 the fossils described by me from the Morte Slates in the Quarterly 

 Journal of the Geological Society of May, 1896. He says he has 

 been tempted to do this because someone had " recently read to the 

 Geological Society of Cornwall" a paper in which he "assumes the 



