part 1] GAULT AlS^D LOWEE GEEEIs^SAND NEAR LEIGHTOIS'. 79 



through, the Lower and most of the Upper Gault, and it occurs 

 where we should normallj^ expect to find something of this type 

 on the analogy of the Folkestone section, in which Price notes 

 (' The Gault,' op. cit. p. 15) that his ' Bed II ' contains 'a variety 

 of Am. auritus, having long tubercles, which may perhaps be a 

 distinct species.' My tuberculate sjDccimen crushed in the vertical 

 plane (see p. 52), poor as it is, could not be called ' catillus,' and 

 indicates the presence of an undegenerate Hoplitid in the anti- 

 cipated position. The determination of the catillus-^^eoiQ^ on 

 such material must be open to doubt ; and, whatever it may be, 

 the fossil is not strong enough to bear the strain put upon it. 



In the foi'egoing notes I believe that I have dealt with every 

 species relied upon by Dr. Kitchin & Mr. Pringle in their argu- 

 ment. It only remains to be pointed out that the preceding 

 descriptions have shown that the lower clays at Shenley Hill 

 contain the usual abundance of * Belemnites minimus ' and crushed 

 ' Inoceramus ' which characterizes the lowest part of the Gault 

 clays all through this region ; and that they have yielded none of 

 the undoubted Upper Gault fossils which occur so plentifully in 

 the overlying band of pale clay Avith phosphate-nodules. 



I conclude that the Shenley cla^^s are not inverted, but in 

 normal sequence. 



(ii) On the second point there is little more to be said than has 

 been already implied. The fact that Lower Gault fossils were 

 formerly obtained from the Heath House sections (p. 27) prac- 

 tically answers the whole of the argument. Having assumed that 

 the Lower Gault was absent there, Dr. Kitchin & Mr. Pringle 

 throughout their paper have been led to apply the term ' Upper 

 Gault ' not onl}^ to this section but to all the lowest clays of the 

 sections around Shenley. The only reasons stated, so far as I can 

 find, are : — 



' We infer that the Gault in situ at Shenley Hill was orig-inally some 40 feet 

 ' thick at the most ; and we consider that the presence of the fauna of Bed IX 

 ' of Folkestone such a short distance up in the series makes it certain that 

 ' only the Upper Gault is represented here ' (K.P., p. 60) — [an argument with 

 which I have already dealt, antea, p. Q6 ; and, referring to the Miletree-Farm 

 section] : — ' We have nowhere seen any exclusively Lower Gault fossil in it ' 

 (K.P., p. 57). 



But the latter statement requires to be amplified by the addition 

 of ' nor any exclusively Upper Gault fossil,' since it is mentioned 

 that only Belemrtites minimus was seen in the clay of this section, 

 and only the same fossil and Inoceramus concentricus in the re- 

 maining pit (Garside's) in which the 'Upper Gault overlap' is 

 postulated. 



It is true that our knowledge of the full Gault sequence in 

 Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire is still yqyj imperfect ; but I 

 think that it has been confused, and not advanced, by the proposed 

 new interpretation of the Shenley sections. 



