GEOLOGY. 3 



Prof. Quenstedt in his ' Cephalopoden,' page 12, would seem to make the divi- 

 sion between Lias and Oolite between the bed with Jurensis and that of Opalinus. 

 At any rate his " Schwarzer Jura" ends with the Jurensis bed and his 

 "Brauner Jura" begins with that of Opalinus. 



My father, the late Prof. Buckman, wrote several papers on the Oolites, and 

 more especially the Inferior Oolite of Gloucestershire and Dorset, with both of 

 which counties a long residence had made him well acquainted. Whilst in the 

 former county, and even afterwards, he wrote several pamphlets to combat 

 Dr. Wright's upward extension of the Upper Lias, so as to include the sands 

 and the Frocester Hill Cephalopoda bed, because my father contended that not 

 only the Cephalopoda bed, but also the sands below, should be included in the 

 Inferior Oolite as is shown by a section of Frocester Hill (Buckman, ' Journal 

 Geological Society,' 1857, page 103), and he also contended that these sands were 

 in reality on the same horizon as the Pea Grit (Pisolite) beds of other parts of 

 the Cotteswolds, and differed from them only by their chemical composition 

 having produced sand instead of stone. 



This view as to the sands and Pisolite beds we find in 1857 expressed as follows. 

 "What, then, is here meant by the equivalents of the sand? My present opinion 

 is, that the sands of Frocester are identical in time with the mixed pisolitic beds 

 of "the Cheltenham district, and that the iron-shot sands of the Dundry Hill 

 and Somerset sections are also of the same period ; the pisolitic conditions 

 prevailed in one part of the Oolite sea, and sandy ones in another ; and hence the 

 difference of the fauna." 1 After my father had removed to Dorset and had the 

 opportunity of studying the Inferior Oolite there, we find the same view expressed 

 in a paper read to the Somersetshire Archaeological and Natural History Society on 

 the Cephalopoda bed, &c, in 1874, viz. (page 7) : "The so-called 'Lias or Oolite 

 Sands ' underlying the Bradford Oolitic stone are really the representatives of the 

 lower members of the Inferior Oolite of Gloucestershire, at least for 100 feet of 

 their thickness," and we have the Dorset Cephalopoda bed defined as the represen- 

 tative of the Rubbly Oolite at the top of Leckhampton Hill and Cold Comfort, or 

 the equivalent of the Gryphite and Trigonia Grits (see same page). For further 

 remarks on this subject I must refer the reader to another paper on " The so-called 

 Midford Sands," ' Quarterly Journal Geological Society,' 1879, by my father. 

 Now, if these opinions as to the correlation of the Midford or Yeovil Sands with 

 the Pisolite beds of Cheltenham district be correct, those sands naturally belong 

 to the Inferior Oolite as my father contended, and he would therefore commence 

 the Inferior Oolite with the Murchisonge-zone ; but for this he had to suppose the 

 existence in Dorset of two portions of sands separated by a Cephalopoda bed, the 



1 " The Oolitic Rocks of Gloucestershire and North Wilts," by Prof. Buckman, ' Quart. Journ. 

 Geological Society,' vol. xiv, 1857, p. 106. 



