3io English Formations. 



Cornbrash, Oxford Clay, Coral Kag, Kimeridge Clay, 

 and Portland beds. These, and the underlying for- 

 mations, down to the base of the New Ked Sandstone, 

 constitute what geologists term the Older Mesozoic or 

 Secondary formations, and all of them, from their 

 approximate conform ability one to the other, occupy a 

 set of belts of variable breadth, extending from Devon 

 and Dorsetshire northwards, through Somersetshire, 

 Gloucestershire, and Leicestershire, to the north of 

 Yorkshire, where they disappear beneath the Grerman 

 Ocean. 



FIG. 58. 



1. Portland Oolite. 3. Wealden Sands and Clays. 



2. Purbeck Limestones and Marls. 4. Cretaceous strata. 



When the Portland beds had been deposited (see 

 figs. 39 and 58), the entire Oolitic series, in what is now 

 the south and centre of England, and much more 

 besides in other regions, was raised above the sea-level 

 and became land. Because of this elevation, there is 

 evidence in the Isles of Purbeck, Portland, and the Isle 

 of Wight, and in the district known as the Weald, of a 

 state of affairs which must have been common in all 

 times of the world's history. We have there a series 

 of beds, consisting of clays, loose sands, sandstones, and 

 shelly limestone, indicating, by their fossils, that they 

 were accumulated as a delta and in lagoons in an estu- 

 ary, where fresh water and occasionally brackish water 

 and marine conditions prevailed at the mouth of a 

 great continental river. The position of these beds, 

 with respect to the Cretaceous strata, will be seen in 



