244 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [Jan. 9, 



ments this band is considerably thicker, but much diminished on the 

 opposite side. Towards Coaley it passes into a soft, gritty, ferrugi- 

 nous ooHte, full of comminuted shells and small corals, cemented 

 together by a sort of calcareous paste, the outer surface of which is 

 covered with broken joints of a new species of Pentacrinites, long 

 stems and fragments of the head being sometimes obtained. This 

 bed is of no great thickness, and most nearly resembles one at Crick- 

 ley, between Cheltenham and Birdlip. The lower strata are very 

 fossihferous, and belong to the lowest division of the inferior oolite, 

 and may be traced at Painswick, Crickley, Leckhampton and Cleeve 

 Hills, the clays of the upper lias appearing in contact immediately 

 beneath. They for the most part consist of a coarse ferruginous 

 oohte, made up of reddish-brown, oval grains. Ammonites, Nau- 

 tili, and Belemnites^, nowhere very abundant in the north-eastern 

 division of the Cotswolds, occur here in profusion, with various 

 other shells. Lithologically, these beds are identical with the cele- 

 brated beds at Dundry and other places in Somersetshire. They 

 thence run south to near Wotton-under-edge, where they are cha- 

 racterized by an equal number of Cephalopoda. The upper part 

 of Stinchcomb Hill intervening is composed of a compact oolite, 

 like the thickest bed at Frocester, very barren in organic remains, 

 with the exception of Terebratula spinosa, specimens of which are 

 numerous and well-preserved : and if, according to J\lr. Lycett, 

 this species is limited to the top of the inferior oolite, this stratum 

 must be superior to any of the others referred to in this paper. The 

 rest of the oolitic range north-east of Cheltenham has the same ge- 

 neral structure as the formation at Leckhampton, though the highest 

 hills, such as Cleeve, are capped by superior strata. The richest fos- 

 sihferous beds in the inferior oolite of the whole of the above district 

 are, the clay dividing the Trigonia grit from the Gryphite grit, seen 

 at Cold Comfort, the Gryphite grit, the shelly freestone, and the 

 lowest strata on Frocester Hill. It remains to be proved whether 

 the shelly freestone occurs in the inferior oolite elsewhere ; but in 

 those parts of Wilts, Dorset, and Somerset, where I have had op- 

 portunities of examimng it, I have not noticed any bed of a similar 

 nature. It is interesting to observe the strong lithological resem- 

 blance which the "shelly freestone" bears to the great oolite, espe- 

 cially at jMinchinhampton ; but the most important fact is, the iden- 

 tification of a large number of the shells with certain species which 

 abound at that spot. I\Iost of these are of small size, and very rarely 

 have both valves attached : the Conchifera are most abundant, while 

 the Gasteropoda are less numerous, and generally very minute, though 

 a large species of Patella (P. riigosa) is sometimes met with. Some 

 retain their original colour, such as Area, Bonax, Mytilus, and Tri- 

 gonia. A large proportion are much water-worn, the shelly portions 

 of the freestone being literally made up of comm^inuted fragments of 

 shells, among which the more perfect specimens are widely dispersed. 



* Belemnites are plentiful at Leckhampton in the stratum immediately below 

 the Pisolite, which evidently forms a diminished representative of the inferior 

 beds at Coalev, &c. 



