280 



J. F. BLAKE AND W. H. HTTDLESTON ON 



Section of Oolites and Limestones at Todbere. 



ft. in. 



1. Loose, soft yellow oolite marl, and rubbly thin-bedded oolite 



limestone, with numerous fossils. Natica, sp., Chemnitzia hed- 

 dingtonensis, Ostrea solitaria, Echinobrissus scutatus 3 



2. Oolitic and shelly limestone, with soft marly partings, breaking 



into thin layers, fossiliferous. Echinobrissus scutatus, Ammonites 

 plicatilis 7 



3. Solid block of blue limestone, composed of comminuted shells, with 



scattered oolitic grains. It is locally called '"rag-stone," and is 

 used for road-mending on account of its hardness ; but it is a 

 beautiful building-stone, and has been extracted as such. Qhe 

 fossils all obliterated 4 



4. Rubbly clay parting of insignificant thickness here, but increasing 



to 1 foot in a quarry a little to the we.st, where it is full of small 

 broken fossils. 



5. Solid creamy fine-grained oolitic, limestone, false-bedded, very 



hard, and blue in the unweathered portions, weathering light 

 yellow. Joints filled with calcite. The best is U6ed for build- 

 ing; the rest for lime. No distinguishable fossils 12 



6. Not seen here, but reported to be hard blue marl with small 



stones. Some of it, seen by the road-side, was very pisolitic, and 

 contained many oysters. Exogyra nana 17 



The last of these beds makes clear our stratigraphical horizon ; 

 and in the absence of fossils, the lithology of bed No. 5 may prove 

 its identity with the false-bedded series of Sturminster. The higher 

 beds will be referred to again. 



A similar section to the above is seen in enormous worked- out 

 quarries a little to the west, where the false-bedded series and the 

 superincumbent Haggy oolites and marls form a delightful picture 

 to the geological eye, which we have attempted to pourtray (fig. 3). 



Fig. 3. — View of Section of False-bedded Oolites near Marnhutt. 



Further to the west, again, the false-bedded limestones are still 

 more largely exposed in a quarry with a 14-feet face, now in work, 

 where they are extremely uniform and smooth, in beds from 1 foot 

 to 2 feet in thickness, without apparent dip in any direction. They 

 are beautiful building-stones, having a fine grain, and being free from 

 fossils, except a single bed near the top, which contains Trigonia 

 clavellata, Chemitzia Jieddingtonensis, Nerincea fasciata, Pleuromya 

 tellina, and Echinobrissus scutatus. As no false-bedding is here 



