42 GASTEROPODA OF THE INFERIOR OOLITE. 



or less a repetition, on a reduced scale, of the Bradford Abbas section. Gastero- 

 poda from more than one horizon are far from scarce. The Lower Division 

 preponderates. 



Stoford Sands Quarry. — No Gasteropoda are known to me from here, but it is 

 interesting as containing a shell-bed about forty feet below the Inferior Oolite 

 Limestone with Am. radians, Am. Moorei, &c, plainly showing where the horizon 

 of the Gloucestershire Cephalopoda-bed must be sought. Mr. H. B. Woodward 

 considers that these shell-beds occur at more than one level in the Yeovil Sands. 



Bradford Abbas. — There has been more than one quarry worked in this parish ; 

 and it can hardly be doubted that many of the fossils from these quarries and 

 from Stoford, &c, are labelled and quoted " Yeovil," which town happens to be on 

 the Middle Lias. 



Although there is only about twelve feet of limestone here, the life-history of 

 the Inferior Oolite is well represented in this quarry, which may be compared with 

 the cliff section at Burton Bradstock (Profile No. 1) of about the same thickness. 

 I have no Gasteropoda from the lowest or opalinus-zone, if indeed it occurs here, 

 but the Paving-stone bed is an excellent repository of the fossils of the Murchi- 

 sona-zone, which may be also proved in the railway-cutting, a short distance to 

 the south. Thirteen inches of stone in this quarry are the Dorsetshire represen- 

 tatives, in all probability, of most of the fimbria-atage of the Cotteswolds. This 

 may be shown by the Ammonites. The resemblances between the Gasteropoda 

 of the two regions is less obvious. Indeed, we are never so strongly reminded of 

 the differences between the two districts as at Bradford Abbas, because it is here 

 that the Murchisona-zone has been most successfully worked for fossils, so that 

 comparisons are more possible than elsewhere. 



The following is an extract from an Excursion Report of the Geologists' Asso- 

 ciation 1 with reference to this bed. " The ' Paving-stone bed ' is a slabby ironshot 

 Oolite, which comes off just above the ' Dew-bed,' and is used for gutters, &c. 

 The true Harpoceras 2 Murchisonee occurs here, as also the var. Bradfordiensis, 

 S. S. Buckman. That author says of H. Murchisoncs that it marks a distinct zone 

 which is just on the top of the Sands or passage-beds. This zone is about a foot 

 thick at Bradford Abbas, but about three or four feet at Corton and Hawthorn 

 Downs." At Bradford Abbas the Gasteropoda of this zone are in fairly good 

 spathic condition, though not equal to the bed above. The matrix is a rather 

 harsh calcareous rock, yellowish for the most part where the iron is peroxidised, 

 and moderately ironshot. Sometimes the shells have perished considerably. It is 

 not at all times certain that the fossils have not been mixed somewhat with those 

 from the bed above, with which no doubt they are closely allied. Certain genera, 

 however, are greatly predominant, such as Cirrus, though this is probably less 

 1 ' Proceed.,' vol. ix, No. 4. 2 Now called Ludwigia. 



