1863.] PORTER OXFORD CLAY. 317 



Among the Brachiopoda, we find Terebratula Buclcmani, Dav., in 

 great abundance at Cleeve, Leckhampton, and Sherdington. Tere- 

 bratula Wrightii is equally gregarious, as in the Perna-bed at Cold 

 Comfort ; but it is only sporadically distributed elsewhere in the 

 neighbourhood, and does not occur in the south. Near Andovers- 

 ford, a small Terebratula, probably a dwarfed variety of T. ornitho- 

 cephala, is met with in great abundance, and more sparingly so at 

 Leckhampton, but I have not found it anywhere else. In the 

 southern part of the district we find Terebratula sphatroidalis occur- 

 ring in the same great abundance at Hadspen and Bruton-Bradstock, 

 while in neighbouring quarries they are by no means numerous. 

 The Gasteropods are mostly southern forms, while the conditions of 

 the sea-bottom upon which the calcareo-argillaceous beds of the 

 Lower Trigonia-grit were deposited appear to have been favourable 

 to the life of the Anatinidce. Of the Echinoderms, most of the 

 species of the northern part of the Cotteswolds are different from 

 those of the southern side of the Mendips, and instead of Clypeus 

 (Jtfucleolites) Plotii, Hyboclypus caudatu.s, Pedina rotata, and Holec- 

 typus depressus, we find Clypeus Agassizii and C. altus, Hyboclypus 

 gibberulus, Holectypushemisphozricus, Collyrites ringens, and 0. ovalis, 

 and others that are not, or only rarely, found in Gloucestershire. 

 Omitting, however, these local and also the rarer forms, most of the 

 more common and characteristic fossils on both sides of the llendips 

 are identical *. 



In this communication I have endeavoured to show the relationship 

 the several subdivisions of the Inferior Oolite hold with respect to 

 each other, — and that the conclusions that have been arrived at by 

 some writers on this point, based on the evidence of fossils only, are 

 not borne out when the beds come to be traced stratigraphically 

 from one end of the Oolitic range to the other. 



2. On the Occttrrexce of large Quantities of Fossil Wood in the 

 Oxford Clay, near Peterborough. By H. Porter, M.D., E.G.S. 



[Abstract.] 

 The author gave a short description of the Oxford Clay area in the 

 neighbourhood of Peterborough, and mentioned the properties which 

 caused it to be worked, in the parishes of Eye, Thorn ey, Whittlesey, 

 Stanground, Fletton, and Stilton, for the manufacture of bricks and 

 tiles. The clay is very fossiliferous at all these places, the most 

 abundant remains being those of BelemnilesPuzosianiis, Gryphcea dila- 

 tata, Ammonites Elizabethce, A. Duncani, A. convolutus, A. cordatus, 

 A. fiuctuosas, A. hecticus, A. Comptoni, and a few other species of 



Morris (Cat. Brit. Foss.), it occurs at Chideock, Sherborne, and Dundry, 

 localities where the Bagstone is the lowest member. Both A. ParTcinsoni and 

 A. Humphriesianv.s have been found in Yorkshire in beds which are probably 

 younger than the Inferior Oolite of Gloucestershire. 



* Some of the Inferior Oolite forms of Somersetshire pass upwards into the 

 Puller's Earth — Hyboclypus gibberulus, Collyrites ovalis, and Holectypus de- 

 pressus being not uncommon in this bed near Bruton. 



