Morris — Geological Excursion to Bath, ^c. 235 



Bucklandi beds with the characteristic fossils.^ These beds, as you 

 ascend the hill sides above Bitton, are successively overlain by the 

 Middle and Upper Lias, and the sands of the Inferior Oolite. 



Another day the party visited — after passing a narrow strip of 

 Old Ked Sandstone at Spring Garden, north of Frome — the fine sec- 

 tions of the Vallis, where, at Hapsford Mills, the upturned and 

 denuded edge of the Carboniferous Limestone are immediately over- 

 lain by a thick bed of conglomerate ; the rounded pebbles, many of 

 limestone, being sometimes bored and occasionally having oysters 

 attached to them. This bed is covered by more quietly deposited 

 strata of marl and shale, with nodules containing Estherice ; further 

 on a fault is observed bringing down the Inferior Oolite, beyond 

 which the limestone contains a kind of mineral vein, which 

 becomes far more numerous as you proceed up the valley, and 

 more interesting from the fossil contents, consisting, (as shown 

 by Mr. Moore,) of Liassic strata, partly filling the fissures, to the 

 walls of which Lias fossils are adhering, associated with con- 

 cretionary ferruginous bands of Sulphate of Barytes, some Galena 

 and Blende. In this valley at the southern corner the Inferior 

 Oolite is laid down upon the ancient Carboniferous Limestone sea- 

 bottom, and has so accommodated itself to any inequalities in its 

 surface as to make it exceedingly difficult to determine where the 

 one formation begins, or the other ends. So intimately united are 

 the unconformable deposits, that the same hand-specimen may show 

 portions of each, with Lithodomi of Oolitic or any intervening age, 

 still retained in their burrows in the surface of the Carboniferous 

 Limestone.^ 



The Nunney and Holwell sections were afterwards visited, 

 showing the numerous Liassic veins in the Carboniferous Limestone, 

 of various thicknesses, and containing many organic remains. 

 Beyond this is the Microlestes quarry on the Shepton Mallet road, — 

 a dyke in the limestone which has yielded such a rich harvest of 

 Khsetic remains, including the mammal teeth belonging to the same 

 genus (Microlestes), which was first found in deposits of similar age 

 near Stuttgard. Besides the mammals Mr. Moore carefully examined 

 some tons weight of the vein, extracting therefrom many remains 

 of Eeptilia (some new to England), Notliosaurus, Placodus, Psepho- 

 derma, Iclitlujosanrus, Plesiosaurus, etc., and not less than 70,000 teeth 

 of Lophod'iis, besides shells and corals, many of which are now ex- 

 hibited in the Bath Museum. Above the hamlet of Holwell, on the 

 Mars ton road, is a small section, in which the Carboniferous, Ehaetio, 

 Lias, and Inferior Oolite are represented, the last bed being uncon- 

 formable. 



The party concluded the day's excursion by a visit to a new 

 trial sinking for coal on the estate of the Earl of Cork, near Iron 

 Millbridge, which had reached the depth of eighty feet, in the 

 Oxford-clay, showing the characteristic fossils, as Gryphea dilatattty 



^ See the section by Mr. Moore, Geol. Journ., vol. xxiii. p. 499. 

 2 De la Beche, Mem. Geol. Survey, vol. i. p. 290 ; Moore, Geol. Journ. vol. xxiii. 

 p. 488. 



