Dr. FiTTON on the Strata below the Chalk. 



277 



8. "Stone", commonly in two beds; that for which the quarries are worked. It is like ^ 



the Purbeck-Portland, and contains disseminated spots of pyrites. The under 

 surface is often covered with petrifactions, — Perna, Trigonia, Venericardia, and 

 Trochus. Bones have been found in it, and sometimes lignite 



Bottom of the Quarry. 



9. Below is sand : precise depth and relations unknown , . . . . about 



Total about .... 



Ft. In. 



2 6 



12 

 35 



The principal stone-pits at Garsington, are in the western escarpment of the hill north of the 

 village, overlooking the low ground about Langcomb and Cowley. One of the largest gave the 

 following Section : — 



Stone-pit at Garsington. — \_Lower green-sand, Purbech, and Portland.'} 



1. Loamy soil about 2 



a. Ferruginous brown sand, including portions like umber, and irregular 



2. 



seams of clay, like that of the bed 3. at Great Hazeley, (Fuller's earth?). 

 It contains also patches of greenish sand. 



A band of yellow ochre, about half an inch thick. 



A thin bed of uniform tough clay (Fuller's earth), in wax-like pieces, 

 polished by motion under pressure 



>■ 8 



4 



[These, like the upper beds at Great Hazeley and Combe Wood, follow all 

 the irregularities of the mass below.] 



3. " Malm"; an agglomerate, composed of stone and softer marl-like matter, much de- 



composed. Among the components are, — 



a. Light greenish-grey marl, like some beds of the lowest chalk ; con- 

 taining at the upper part detached fragments of silicified coniferous 

 wood, like that of Portland, and portions of bone. 



6. Firmer pieces of stone, with some oolitic particles, including small 

 spiral univalves, — Paludina, perhaps of two species? ; a Planorbis? ; 

 My tilus ; and Cypris 



c. At the lower part, the mass consists of larger pieces of uniform lime- 

 stone, in some places like the "Pendle" of the pits at Whitchurch 

 hereafter mentioned, and including small Paludina, with other small 

 spiral univalves, Mytili and Cypris. Some of these pieces have the 

 botryoidal structure of part of the Portland " cap" (Travertine) ; of 

 which bed (or of the " Skull-cap ") they seem for the greater part to be 

 the representative : but others consist, as at Combe Wood, of fine- 

 grained oolite, passing, however, into the compact stone, and con- 

 taining the same fossils Total about 



[The irregular cavities and waves at the top of this mass are very remark- 

 able, resembling the erosions at the top of the chalk.] 



4. The Portland stone of these pits requires no particular description. 



The upper part of another pit, about half a mile east of that which furnished the preceding 

 list, was nearly the same, but still more like that of Great Hazeley. A third pit close to it con- 

 tained a " gull ", as at p. 276. 



The Portland sand is not visible in the descent from Garsington, but is very well seen in the 

 escarpment of Shotover Hill ; where the order, at the lowest part of the Portland series, is as 

 follows : — 



