XVII. — ^Extracts from a Paper entitled. Remarks on the Strata at Stinch- 

 combe near Dursley, in Gloucestershire. 



By GEORGE CUMBERLAND, Esq. 



[Read December 6th, 1822.] 



vJN Hampton common and at the top of the Stroudwater vale, towards Ciren- 

 cester, we have a fine oolite, nearly approaching- in texture to Bath stone. 

 Beneath the level of the upper oolite, at Uley great quarry, is a mass of 

 bastard-freestone, differing- from Bath stone in the abundance and yellowness 

 of the calcareous matter by which it is cemented, and in being more porous 

 and subject to flake after frost. It contains but few shells. Below this free- 

 stone are rubbly beds^ consisting of compact sparry masses, irregularly shaped 

 like chalk-flints, very full of shells, and separated from one another by a soft 

 calcareous powder, tinged by iron. 



The tops of Stinchcombe hill and the other hills in its vicinity that flank 

 the valley of the Severn, exhibit vast heaps of rubble, consisting of bastard- 

 freestone mixed with some fragments of pure white oolite. The organic 

 remains that we here find are three or four species of Anomia^ Trigonias dae- 

 dalea and costata, Ostrea crista-galli, and Porpitae. 



Beneath this debris, in a quarry on the northern side of Stinchcombe hill, 

 under a high beech-wood, we see a few horizontal beds cropping out from 

 beneath others of the above-described rubbly oolite. These beds are of a warm 

 brown colour, and are rather compact in texture,consistingof a sandy loam (such 

 as here prevails upon the surface) cemented by calcareous spar. These beds 

 are divided into strata of moderate thickness. In the beds themselves but few 

 shells can be distinguished ; but their joints are full of the casts of Myae and 

 Cardia of large dimensions, mixed, occasionally, with a few small Pectens. 



The passage from the preceding beds on the sides of the hill to the brown 

 beds at Stinchcombe in the valley below, is best exhibited in a hill called 

 Long Down, above the little village of Upper Cam. At the top is a quarry 

 of white stone : the road leading up to this quarry cuts through a deep stra- 

 tum of soft brown sandy stone : beneath this lie the harder masses of the 

 brown shelly rock, so well exposed at Newnham quarry and at two other 

 quarries, all situated in the parish of Stinchcombe. 



Newnham quarry is about one mile and a half distant from Dursley. Its 

 strata correspond very nearly to those of Dundry hill on the south of Bristol, 



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