356 R. F. TOMES ON MADREPORARIA FROM THE LIAS OF 
in which do not occur where the White Lias is present. These are 
the finely laminated shale and stone beds of the Planorbis series, 
and the underlying and subcrystalline Ostrea-beds. Immediately 
below the latter is the ‘“‘ Guinea” bed, which takes exactly the same 
place at the top of the Rhetic series which the White Lias does, 
and moreover is, like the lower part of that deposit, often highly 
conglomeratic. From its position, its lithology, and the occurrence 
of Thecosmilie in it, I believe that it corresponds in time with the 
White Lias, and is, in fact, the attenuated northerly extension of it. 
I shall further on show, when speaking of the South-Wales Lias, 
how nearly it also corresponds with a bed of conglomerate quite at 
the bottom of the formation at the Stormy Cement Works, near 
Pyle. 
I am unable to trace the exact stratigraphical position of the 
Madreporaria in the beds of the White Lias through the western 
counties of England, but I may call attention to a section at Steven’s 
Hill, near Long Sutton, Somersetshire, given by the late Mr. Moore, 
in which a species of branching Thecosmilia was found in great 
abundance in one of the lower beds by my late friend Mr. J. W. 
Kirshaw and myself *. The position of the coral at that place ap- 
pears to correspond with the position of the Thecosmilia in the 
White Lias of Warwickshire. 
The corals I have met with from the White Lias up to the present 
time are :-—Montlivaltia rhetica, Tomes, Thecosmilia rugosa, Laube, 
Thecosmilia Hornesii, Laube, Thecosmilia confluens, Laube, and the 
branching Thecosmilia from Long Sutton, to which I am unable 
at present to give a name. These, it will be observed, are all 
Rhetic species; none of them, unless it be the last named, ever 
occurring in the true Lias. With the Mollusca it is quite different, 
nearly the whole of the species being found also in the zones of 
Ammonites planorbis and A. angulatus. 
Indeed it may be asserted of the Warwickshire White Lias that 
while it and the Sutton Stone have a coral fauna much resembling 
that of the St. Cassian beds, the Molluscan remains in the former, 
and perhaps also in the latter, are essentially Hettangian. In this 
respect therefore they have no close relationship with the St. Cassian 
deposits. But it is desirable to note that in the White Lias of the 
western counties some of the mollusca are exclusively Rhetic. Yet 
the stratigraphical position of the Warwickshire and Somersetshire 
White Lias is the same, and there are not two opinions as to their 
forming part of the Rhetic formation. Regarded as the upper part 
of it, and as a transition into the true Lias, such differences are 
nothing more than may be anticipated. 
The Brocastle and Sutton Conglomerates. 
I had the advantage of an examination of the conglomeratic bed 
at Brocastle so long ago as 1863, when I visited the locality under 
the guidance of the late Mr. Moore; but I failed at that time, as I 
have since failed, to come to a satisfactory conclusion respecting its 
real position between the argillaceous beds of the true Lias and the 
* See Quart. Journ. Geol. Soe. vol. xvii. p. 492. 
