172 E. F. TOMES ON THE GKEAT-OOLITE MADEEPORAKIA. 



in great plenty in bed No. 7, and is, apparently, the only coral in it, 

 and so far as *I at present know, is restricted to it *. The great 

 difference observable between the bed which is so rich in corals and 

 which overlies the blue clay, and the one on which the clay rests 

 and which contains only its one peculiar species, would seem to 

 indicate that a complete change of conditions came in with the 

 deposition of the clay, which was fatal to the one abundant species 

 in the bed beneath it, and that with a return to the conditions 

 suitable to the production and growth of corals other and quite dis- 

 similar forms made their appearance. These forms evidently con- 

 tinued and throve during the period when the whole of the Great 

 Oolite was in process of deposition, as will be seen on reference to 

 the comparative table which I give (at pages 173 and 174) of the 

 species from the several localities mentioDed in this paper. 



My friend Mr. Beesley, of Banbury, has made known, in his valu- 

 able paper on the " Geology of the Eastern portion of the Banbury 

 and Cheltenham Bailway" f, the existence of a well-defined coal-bed 

 in a small cutting in the Great Oolite on Bollright Heath. Nine 

 beds are given as occurring there ; and the seventh in descending 

 order contains many corals. Of this section Mr. Beesley observes, 

 " The section reminds one of the same beds exposed in the lower 

 part of cuttings on the West Midland Bailway (now Great "Western 

 Bailway) at Stonesfield and North Leigh, which the Association 

 visited under the guidance of the late lamented Professor Phillips 

 three years ago." 



I have several times visited this locality, and secured from the 

 cutting a very interesting series of corals, and have also seen and 

 examined many others collected there by Mr. Beesley, Mr. E. A. 

 Walford, and Mr. James Windowes, of Chipping Norton. Probably 

 therefore I am acquainted with the greater part of the species which 

 occur there. 



There are some other places in Oxfordshire where Great- Oolite 

 corals may be met with, but where no section is observable. Steeple 

 Barton, which has been known since the time of Dr. Plott for its 

 fossil corals, is one of these ; and Glympton, which is a village in the 

 same district, has supplied a good number of fine specimens. At 

 both these places the corals lie scattered on the surface of the ploughed 

 fields. Near to North Leach, in Gloucestershire, I have also observed 

 Great-Oolite corals scattered over a ploughed field. 



The only remaining locality of which I shall speak is Epwell, 

 near to Brailes, where I discovered in the bottom of a quarry, some 

 years since, some large and highly coralliferous masses which had 

 been tumbled down by the quarrymen. The corals which I obtained 

 there were enclosed in a cream-coloured layer attached to a bed 

 which, from its lithological character, I took to be Stonesfield 

 Slate. 



* The same species appears and is pretty common in a " rifted " bed which 

 immediately overlies the Inferior Oolite, in the railway-cutting at Hook Norton, 

 Oxfordshire. , 



t Proc. Geol. Assoc, vol. v. no. 6. 



