670 MESSES. S. S. BTTCKMAN AND E. WILSON" [Nov. 1 896, 



could have been given only to a portion of the strata that we intend 

 to describe. On the other hand, a title such as ' On certain Beds of 

 Dundry Hill ' would have been far too vague. The strata which 

 we have investigated form the upper portion — about the upper 

 100 feet — of that isolated, somewhat flat-topped eminence known 

 as Dundry Hill. They comprise deposits which would usually be 

 known as Marlstone, tipper Lias, Supra-liassic sands, and Inferior 

 Oolite. Owing apparently to a similarity in lithological structure 

 between the Marlstone rock-bed and a bed in the Inferior Oolite 

 itself, the whole of the above-mentioned deposits have been 

 mapped by the officers of the Geological Survey as Inferior Oolite 

 (g 5) around nearly the whole of Dundry Hill. • 



II. Histoeical Retrospect. 



Considering that Dundry Hill has always been known as a 

 classical locality for ' Inferior Oolite ' fossils, that it is the most 

 westerly deposit of ' Inferior Oolite ' north of the Mendips, and 

 that it is within easy reach of a populous city, it must be confessed 

 that its strata have not received any great amount of attention — 

 especially for the purpose of making exact correlation of the deposits 

 with contemporaneous strata elsewhere. Nevertheless, if we were 

 to mention all those papers wherein more or less casual reference 

 has been made to the Dundry rocks, or to the fossils obtained 

 therefrom, it would be easy to make a somewhat lengthy biblio- 

 graphy ; but such a compilation would be of little value. "We 

 would, however, notice certain publications which have dealt with 

 the strata of this hill, in order to show what our predecessors have 

 accomplished. 



Conybeare and Phillips 1 noticed Dundry Hill, and referred to the 

 ironshot nature of the stone ; while De la Beche 2 mentioned it, 

 but only in a general way, as a locality for Inferior Oolite. H. E. 

 Strickland 3 correlated the Oolite of Dundry with the Pisolite of 

 Cheltenham, the Cephalopod-bed at Haresfield Hill, and the Oolite 

 of Bridport. 



In 1857 Lycett 4 shortly noticed Dundry and compared its beds 

 with those of the Cotteswolds. His remarks are of interest. 

 ' The ragstone' [evidently the Coralline beds] ' seems to belong to 

 the spinosa stage ; this is underlaid by useful building-freestones and 

 by sandy oolite .... which probably represent the Fimbria stage.' 

 ' The celebrated fossiliferous bed ' [evidently the Ironshot Oolite] is 

 presumably correlated with the Cheltenham pisolite ; the i cynoce- 

 pliala stage [Cotteswold Sands and Cephalopod-bed] is here repre- 

 sented by only half a yard of sands overlying the Upper Lias 

 Clay/ 



1 ' Geology of England and Wales,' pt. i. (1822) p. 236. 



2 ' Report on the Geologv of Cornwall, Devon, and West Somerset,' London, 

 1839. p. 234. 



3 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. vi. (1850) p. 249. 



* l The Cotteswold Hills,' London and Stroud, 1857, p. 72. 



