1850.] AUSTEN SANDS AND GRAVELS OF FARRINGDON. 457 



consider the clay-beds beneath the Farringdon Clump sands as be- 

 longing to the oolitic period, or of the age of the Kimmeridge clay. 



The brick-earth beds on the south side of Farringdon Clump would, 

 from their difference of level, constitute the upper portion of this clay, 

 and a section through the hill from north to south would give such 

 a sequence as that represented in the Section. 



The upper sands of Farringdon Clump did not afford us any fossils. 



The next line of section we proposed to take was across the other 

 eminence of ironsand to the south-west of the town. Following the 

 road to Lechlade, the coral rag is continued as far as the 71st mile- 

 stone, ending where the road slopes down to the low ground of Ox- 

 ford clay. We then struck across by Eaton-woods and Oak-wood, 

 both on Oxford clay, towards Badbury Hill : ascending it on the 

 north-west, the coral rag was seen to show itself as a belt along the 

 hill side — surmounted by a retentive stratum, which, though not ex- 

 posed, would represent the clay of Farringdon Clump ; the change to 

 the higher sands being indicated by the limits of the waste ground, 

 and the growth of furze. The upper sands of Badbury Hill have 

 evidently suffered diminution, as blocks and fragments of stone con- 

 taining fossils are abundantly strewed over the surface. 



The road from Coleshill to Farringdon crosses this hill, and affords 

 a good section from west to east ; the lower part corresponds with 

 that east of Farringdon. Mr. Sharpe and Mr. Prestwich ascer- 

 tained the presence and thickness of the Kimmeridge clay surmount- 

 ing the coral rag. The sands of this hill have apparently a much 

 greater thickness than on Farringdon Clump, as we might expect from 

 the greater extent of the mass. A large sand-pit occurs by the road- 

 side on its west slope. The conditions of deposition which the beds 

 indicate at this place are such as commonly occur in the lower green- 

 sand — the mass is stratified, and the beds have an irregular, and often 

 waved diagonal arrangement ; the sand is sharp, and contains frag- 

 ments of comminuted shells and corals {MilleporcB, Cellepor^cE). 

 Higher up are compact bands with pebbles, the shells, chiefly valves 

 of Exogyra and Terehratula, being more perfect and more abundant. 

 The tabular summit of the hill consists of layers of sandstone, used 

 for the roads, in which organic remains are scarce ; we found in these 

 a few specimens of fossil wood, and the leaflet of a fern. 



Taking the slope of the whole mass of sands and sandstones of 

 Badbury Hill from that of the compact beds in the road section, it 

 would seem to be south-easterly. 



The sands follow the slope of the ground towards Great Coxwell, 

 their termination upon the mass of clay being indicated by a line of 

 springy ground ; the grazing lands about this place are on these sub- 

 jacent clays. Near Little Coxwell the sands reappear, and about half 

 a mile north of the village is a great pit, the first we visited, of the 

 celebrated fossiUferous gravel of Farringdon. 



This pit is of great dimensions, and presents vertical sections, 20 

 feet deep, of beds of coarse sand and subangular pebbles, mixed up with 

 which is a vast accumulation of organic remains : the dip of the mass 

 is about 4° to 5° east, and the total thickness exhibited from west to 



