part 1] GAULT XND LOWEE aREE:NSA:M) Is^EAE LEIUHTON. 27 



ThicJcness in feet. 



3. Ivon-gi'it breccia, ochreous and gvifct}'; with irregular wrinkled"^ 

 cakes of iron -pan, abraded at the top ; worn ironstone slabs | 

 and fragments, mingled with mottled gritty glauconitic loam; )- f to 2 

 and soft pale calcareous patches with small pebbles : cuts j 

 down in irregular hollows and pockets into the underh'ingbeds.J 



2. The Silty beds : ashy-grey silt and loam with clay-streaks, "> i f q 

 and tabular ferruginous concretions towards the base. ) 



1. Silver Sands, cross-bedded: about 30 feet seen. 



Leaving the Glacial Drift out of account, the sequence above the 

 Silver Sands in this section is the same as that of Poplai-s pit, and 

 has the same correspondence with the Miletree and Nine Acre 

 sections. The crushed aspect of the Gault may be due to Glacial 

 agenc}^, but is at least as likely to be a later effect of hill-drag- 

 upon the heavily-loaded soft clays when their margin was exposed 

 through the post- Glacial erosion of the adjacent valley. The 

 presence of ' race,' indicative of deep weathering, is, as usual, 

 accompanied b}" an absence of fossils in the Gault clay. 



Heath House pit. — The next section southward requires full 

 notice, because it figures prominently^ in the recent argument 

 of Dr. Kitchin & Mr. Pringle, who refer to it as 'No. 9 Pit.' 

 It is an obscure exposure in an old pit, formerly known as 

 Heath House or Bushell's pit, abandoned nearly 30 years ago, in 

 the small plantation 250 3'ards east of Heath House, and half 

 a mile due south of Claridge's pit. At this place the Sands 

 have been worked Avestwards beneath rising ground with a thick 

 cover of Gault. Most of the section is hidden, and the pit partly 

 filled, by claj^-slips which now form grassy slopes ; but the base of 

 the Gault is still accessible in two or three spots on the south and 

 east sides of the excavation, and the slipped ground itself affords 

 some information. 



This is evidentl}^ the section ' on the southern slope of . . . Heath 

 Hill ' examined by Jukes-Browne in or about the year 1884, whose 

 account of what he saw in the pit and in an adjacent brickyard is 

 as follows 1 : — 



. . . . ' the base of the Gault is shown in a sand:pit, where 14 feet of dark-grey 

 clay with small patches of bright-red clay at the base rest directly on yellow 

 sand with a well-marked plane of division. This occurrence of red clay is 

 significant in connection with the age and origin of the red marl and red chalk 

 of Norfolk. Close by this pit is a brickyard w^hich shows about 10 feet of 

 bluish-grey clay with a seam of phosphatic nodules in the middle. This 

 nodule bed appears to be a continuation of . . . [one seen at Bucklancl near 

 Aylesbury I . . . for it contains a similar mixture of Lower and Upper Gault 

 species. The following is a list of the species found by myself : — [list of 24 

 species, here condensed : — Ammonites : — beudanti, cristatus, interruptns, 

 lautus, ochetonotu.s, rostratus, splendens, varicosus ; Hamites intermedius ; 

 Belemnites minimus & var. attenuatus ; Dentalium decussatum .... Ostrea 

 vesicularis .... Inoceramus concentricus & sulcatus .... Nucula pectinata ; 

 Plicatula pectinoides, etc.].' 



In referring to this account in our previous paper, I erroneously 

 supposed that the brickyard was an old one still visible on tlie 



1 ' The Ganlt & Upper Groensand " Mem. Geol. Surv. 1900, p. 285. 



