DORSET-SOMERSET DISTRICT. 37 



the fossils marked " Burton Bradstock " and " Bridport." The majority, however, 

 undoubtedly come from the horizon which I have distinguished as P : . 



Bridport. — The town itself is on the Middle Lias, but within a moderate dis- 

 tance are some important exposures of the Inferior Oolite. Burton Bradstock 

 bears 2| miles S.B. The cliff between Bredymouth and Bridport Harbour 2 miles 

 S. by E. ; Vitney Cross Quarries 3 miles E.; Upper Loders Quarry 3| miles 

 E.N.E. ; quarry atPoorstock Station 3| miles N.N.E. ; Outlier at Symondsbury \\ 

 miles W. by N. ; Outlier at Chideock 2 miles W. by N. Some of these may have 

 had more importance formerly than at present, but two of them have yielded many 

 interesting Gasteropoda quite lately, viz. Vitney Cross and Tipper Loders. 



Vitney Cross (see Profile No. 2, p. 38). — There are two quarries here, distin- 

 guished as the Limekiln Quarry and Knight's Quarry. Both afford good hunting- 

 ground for fossils, but in the Limekiln Quarry the section is more complete. 



This quarry is extremely interesting, as it serves for comparison with the 

 development of the Inferior Oolite in Burton Bradstock Cliff, a distance of three 

 miles. We find that the physical conditions are mainly the same ; the volume of 

 the limestones has not at all increased, the Inferior Oolite is still " in a nutshell," 

 and the ParJcinsoni-zone maintains its preponderance in every way. 



The lowest bed visible is somewhere about the op alinus- zone, but no palason- 

 tological traces of that horizon are forthcoming. The block with the line of 

 Ammonites resembling Am. Murchisona is a hard blue stone with much pyrites, 

 and is far from being a pure limestone ; there is a line of a large Astarte along with 

 the Ammonites. The irony nodules serve as an excellent physical feature to guide 

 us on this horizon. The bed above the irony nodules contains numerous Belem- 

 nites ; it is in many places a hard, calcitic, ironshot stone like the ordinary 

 Dundry matrix. In position it may represent the concavus- or Sowerbyi-heds, and 

 probably forms the top of the Lower Division in this quarry, most probably in 

 contact, or nearly so, with the base of P : . 



The lower half of P l5 which we may distinguish as the Astarte-bed, constitutes 

 the base of the upper portion of the quarry ; it is well developed, and contains, both 

 here and in the adjoining quarry, a fine suite of Gasteropoda, tallying extremely 

 well with species from the same bed in Burton Bradstock Cliff. Fine specimens of 

 Spinigera recurva, and many of the characteristic univalves of Burton Bradstock 

 and the neighbourhood of Bridport, may be found here, but the matrix is rather 

 harsher to work. In Knight's Quarry large specimens of Am. ParMnsoni, and a 

 small species of Stephanoceras are abundant ; Ancyloceras also occurs. The lower 

 half of P x is separated from the upper half by about six inches of limestone without 

 many fossils ; it is rather thinly stocked, but contains a considerable number of 

 Ter. spharoidalis, or what passes for that species. 



One of the more remarkable features of the quarry is the great development of 



