236 proceedings of the geological society. [nov. 18, 



November 18, 1857. 



Isaac Fletcher, Esq., Cockermouth ; Edward Saunders, Esq., 

 George Street, Hanover Square ; Joseph Cooksey, Esq., West Brom- 

 wich ; William Colchester, Esq., Dovercourt, Harwich ; and John 

 Evans, Esq., Hemel Hempstead, were elected Fellows. 



The following communications were read : — 



1. On the Estuary Sands in the upper part o/* Shotover Hill. 

 By John Phillips, M.A., LL.D., F.R.S., F.G.S., Reader in 

 Geology in the University of Oxford. 



[Plate XIII.] 



1 . From the earliest days of geological inquiry in England, the range 

 of Sandhills on the north side of the cretaceous basin of London, 

 rich in ochre, fuller' s-earth, and sands of many colours, has been 

 the subject of frequent examination. As early as 1723, Holloway *, 

 writing to Woodward, traces the Range, and describes its geogra- 

 phical relations and principal products ; Smith, in 1800-5, mapped 

 its course, identified it, as he thought, with the Iron-sand of Wilts, 

 Kent, and Sussex, and placed it in his map (1815) between the Gault 

 and the Portland Rocks. Conybeare f took a lively interest in the 

 same rocks, and, from personal research, described them in Shotover 

 Hill, and through a considerable tract to the north-east, referring 

 them, as Smith had done, to the Iron-sand, a group in which he, 

 like Smith, included the Hastings Sands. At this time, however 

 (1822), the term "Iron-sand" included portions both of LowerGreen- 

 sand and Hastings Sands, the complete distinction between these 

 two groups not being as yet reached. 



2. Dr. Fitton, whose memoirs on the Greensands and other strata 

 below the Chalk have preserved the honour of England in regard to 

 the geology of some parts of the Secondary rocks, appears, as early as 

 1827 J, to have traced Purbeck deposits at one point beyond the 

 northern outcrop of the chalk-hills of Buckinghamshire, viz. at 

 Whitchurch, near Aylesbury, where white fissile calcareous beds 

 overlie the Portland rocks, and contain Cyclades and Cypridce. He 

 slightly mentions Shotover, and speaks of the Portland beds at 

 Brill and Garsington, but without any hint of Hastings or Purbeck 

 deposits in these localities. 



3. In the year 1831 1 was the companion of my great predecessor, 

 Buckland, and his friend Conybeare, in an examination of the strata 

 in Shotover Hill and Brill Hill. We traced in succession the 

 members of the Coralline Oolite and Portland Oolite groups, and 

 searched in vain for organic remains amidst the ochraceous sands of 

 the uppermost deposits of these hills. 



4. In 1833 (Dec. 4), Hugh E. Strickland, then beginning to un- 

 fold those qualities which so much endeared him to his many friends, 



* Phil. Trans, xxxii. p. 419. f Geol. Engl, and Wales, pp. 136-143. 



% Geol. Proc. June 1827, i. p. 26. 



