362 Mr. MuRCHisoN on the Strata of the Oolitic Series, 5fc. 



No. 5. Impure calciferous gray gritty limestone. 



6. Blucish limestone with a structure approaching to oolite. The laminae coated with white 

 calcareous powder. 



The blue limestone. No. 2, occupies a part of the shore, where it forms a 

 natural quay for the space of three or four hundred yards. In appearance 

 and fossils, it is identical with that of Broadford in Skye. The calcareous 

 conglomerate. No. 4, also agrees with a similar bed at Broadford, and is not 

 to be distinguished from the white pebbly conglomerate in the lias at Shep- 

 ton Mallet, Somei'set, and the neighbourhood of Bristol ; whilst the oolitic 

 blue limestone. No. 6, has a precise equivalent in beds of lias at Cowbridge, 

 Glamorganshire *. 



These beds at Applecross are of high geological interest, and lead us to 

 suppose that they must have been, at one period, connected with the similar 

 analogous deposits in the opposite islands, which have been already noticed 

 with great accuracy of detail, by Dr. MacCuUoch, in his " Western Islands." 



There are, however, some beds in Lucy Bay, Skye, belonging to the very 

 lowest part of this series, which, although agreeing in position, and in some 

 of their characters, with those just described, still seem to claim a distinct 

 enumeration, from a peculiarity of composition in some of them, and from 

 their containing very remarkable organic remains : — 



No. 1. Upper beds of gray compact limestone of conchoidal fracture, alternating with thin 

 courses of calcart;oub sandstone inclosing belemnites. 



2. Thin beds of compact blue limestone with gryphites. 



3. Thicker beds of grayish limestone, with bunches of polypifers of the genus astrea, which 



much resemble those of the madreporite limestone in the carboniferous series ; but at the 

 same time it must be observed, that, in the oolitic series of England, coralline bodies 

 are occasionally found even in the lowest beds of lias, as, for instance, near Sodbury. 



4. Calciferous grit. 



3. Concretionary bed (two feet thick), containing a compressed mass of fossils, apparently 

 those of the lias ; the weathered surface of the rock displaying madrepores. 



6. Greenish marly sandstone, passing into a yellow and green concretionary mass, which, on 

 fracture, discloses large flakes of crystallized carbonate of lime. 



The whole of these beds do not exceed forty feet in thickness ; and, by 

 their gentle dip to the N. W., they are carried under the dark-coloured mica- 



* For the knowledge of the existence of oolitic lias at Cowbridge, Glamorganshire, I am in- 

 debted to Dr. Buckland, whose description of it, and also of the lias conglomerate at Shcpton Mallet 

 (Ante, vol. i. pp. 301, 303. N.S.), applies very aptly to the varieties of lias at Broadford, Lucy, 

 and Applecross. 



