^ol. 57.] OF THE NORTH COTTESWOLDS. 145 



Cleeve-Hill strata cannot be told by direct measurement, because 

 of faults. That of Leckhampton can ; and therefrom the thickness 

 at Cleeve Hill can be estimated. 



Hull says that the thickness of Inferior Oolite at Leckhampton 

 Hill is 2;^6 feet.^ That does not include the Clypeus-grit, which 

 is about 15 feet thick ; the total then would be 251 feet. But 

 at Cleeve Hill there are, in addition, PhilUpsiana-to-WitcTiellia 

 beds, 27 feet ; excess of Notgrove Freestone, 20 feet : 8nowshill 

 Clay and Harford San-^s, 6 feet. These are all additions at 

 Cleeve. The Cleeve total, then, is 304 feet. This thickness by no 

 means decreases eastward. In the hills to the east of Cutsdean, 

 whereon runs the Pu,2:gilde Street, there is, according to the 

 contour-map, above Temple Guiting, about 250 feet of Inferior 

 Oolite, only up to Snowshill Clay ; and from Cutsdean Bottom to 

 Cutsdean Hill 300 feet, without the series being complete. There 

 is reason to believe the total thickness not far short of 350 feet 

 near Cutsdean, and even then the 27 feet of the Phillipsiana-io- 

 WitcJiellia beds are wanting. 



Taking only tiie additional amount, obtained just now, of 20 feet 

 extra, as balance of gain and loss, in the Kineton neighbourhood as 

 compared with Cleeve, that would make 324 leet. But actually 

 several deposits are known to thicken eastward. The Chjpeus- 

 grit thickens very considerably in tlie Notgrove neighbourhood, as 

 compared with the west flank — say 15 feet. The jSTotgrove Free- 

 stone thickens in the Chedworth district in similar comparison. 

 The lowest beds — the strata of the scissi hemera, which Hull mapped 

 as sands — are many feet thick in the Kineton district. They are 

 only a small bed merged in the Pea-grit Series at Leckhampton. 



There is every reason, then, to think that 350 feet in the Cutsdean 

 district is an under-estimate. Yet almost due south, at Turkdean, 

 Hull gives 70 feet as the thickness of Inferior Oolite; but this 

 decrease is not due to thinning - out, it is due to 

 denudation of an anticlinal fold. 



Since, therefore, the thinning of the Inferior Oolite from west to 

 east is not what may be called normal, but is really abnormal, local, 

 and due to chance anticlinal elevations, it follows that Hull's 

 surmise of analogous and continuous thitming of the Lias could 

 not be estimated from any ratio of Inferior-Oolite decrease. And 

 this has been proved by the well-borings. At Burford, where Hull 

 expected no more than some 130 feet of Lias, the well-boring 

 showed 598 feet.^ So instead of the Khsetic beds being about 250 feet 

 above sea-level, and consequently within about 100 feet of the 

 surface at Signett near Burford, as Hull expected, they proved to 

 be nearly 400 feet below sea-level. 



^ Mem. Geol. Surv. 1857, *Geol. of Country around Cheltenham' p. 32. 



2 H. B. Woodward, "Geology of England & Wales' 2nd ed. (1887) 

 App. I facing p. 612: boring at, Signett, ab.mt 1 mile south of Burford. See 

 also Mem. Geol. Surv, 'Jurassic Rocks of Britain' vol. iv (1894) 'Lower Oo- 

 litic Rocks of England ' p. 303. 



Q. J. G. S. ^0. 225. L 



