Morris — Ferruginous Sands of Buckinghamshire. 461 



(where fresh- water shells are found), Thame, and Shotover Hill ; a 

 good section is here seen with the intercalated ochre beds, and at 

 this latter locality fresh-water shells, as TJnio, Paliidina, etc., have 

 been observed in the sands overlying the Portland by Mr. Jelly, 

 Mr. Strickland, and Professor Phillips.' The rich fossiliferous sands 

 of this series, overlying the Coral rag, are well known at Farring- 

 don,^ and they may be seen at Swindon, above the Purbeck, Locks- 

 well Heath (rich in fossils) above the Calcareous Grit, at Eoade, 

 with Nucula, and at Seend, overlying the Kimmeridge clay ; at the 

 latter place the ferruginous sandy beds have been worked for iron 

 ore, they contain fossils, and at one spot the cavities, formed in the 

 Kimmeridge clay below by the boring molluscs of the period (Lower 

 Greensand), are well seen, proving that the Kimmeridge beds must 

 have formed the sea-bottom during their accumulation. 



Mr. Conybeare, in 1822, describes the beds at Seend as being a 

 pudding-stone, composed of rounded quartz, whose cement is silicious 

 with a calyx of iron, containing ore formerly in much request for 

 the furnace and the forge ; and forming the materials whence the 

 ancient Britons wrought their Quernstones.^ Further south the 

 sands are but faintly seen in the vale of Wardour, overlying the 

 Purbeck and Portland beds, and their equivalents are again recog- 

 nised at Eidgway, near Weymouth. 



These beds may be traced eastward from Weymouth, at many 

 points, as at Luiworth, Worbarrow, and Swanage bays, and on to 

 the Isle of Wight, separating the Wealden and Purbeck from the 

 middle cretaceous rocks. The fine sections of the Isle of Wight, 

 rich as they are in fossils, present, however, different mineral cha- 

 racters from their more eastern and northern representatives, consist- 

 ing mostly of coarse and fine sands, shales and clays, and little 

 limestone, in fact chiefly arenaceous and argillaceous deposits. 

 Around the wealden of Kent, Surrey, and Sussex, the Lower Green- 

 sand strata are extensively developed, but vary in their mineral 

 characters ; thus from Eeigate, westward, although presenting a 

 triple subdivision, the beds are chiefly arenaceous and argillaceous; 

 between Eeigate and Bletchingley the intercalated mass of fullers 

 earth occurs,^ which, according to Mr. Meyer, -^ belongs to the Upper 

 or Folkstone series, and is almost on a level with the Bargate-stone 

 of Godalming, the latter, according to Dr. Fitton, being the equiva- 

 lent of the calcareous beds of Kent. From about this point the 

 limestones known as the Kentish Eag " set in, and are more or 

 less worked, throughout their continuous range, to Hythe, as at 



1 Fitton, Geol. Trans., Vol. iv. p. 275. Phillips, Journ. Geul. Soc, Vol. xiv. 

 p. 236. 



2 R. A. Godwin Austen, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc, Vol. vi. p. 464. D. Sharpe, 

 ibid., Vnl. X. p. 176. 



3 Outlines, p. 142. 



* Conybeare and Phillips, Outlines, 1822, page 152; Fitton, Geol. Trans, vol. iv. 

 p. 141. 



6 See Geol. Mag. 1866. Vol. III. p. 15. 



6 This valuable buildincr stone was extensively used in early Ecclesiastical archi- 

 tecture, and is now larj^^ely worked for the building of most of the modern London 

 churches and for other purposes. 



