344 ME. W. HILL ON THE LOWEE BEDS OF THE UPPEE 



rough and nodular, but the nodules do not weather out so promi- 

 nently as in the beds below, and the marl which separates them is 

 gritty and full of coarse shelly fragments. There seems to be no 

 abru]3t change in the material from the base of this to the under- 

 lying chalk, the grittiness coming on gradually, and the division is 

 marked rather by the accidental circumstance of the colour-band 

 than by any real lithological or palasontological distinction. Upward, 

 however, the chalk becomes decidedly smoother and is parted into 

 courses some 2 feet thick by thin marl bands. Two or three feet 

 from its summit the nodular character of the chalk is again more 

 evident. 



Bed 5. Thickness 22 feet. The first course, about 2 feet thick, 

 of bed o is of rather nodular chalk, markedly greyer in colour than 

 that over- and underlying it. A marl band 3 inches thick separates 

 it from the last division. 



This course, which is the continuation of the " Grey Bed," can be 

 followed from " Il^anny Goat's House " to where it finally disappears 

 with the dip of the beds to the S.E. It retains its massive and solid 

 appearance throughout, and does not break up under the influence 

 of weather or waves. The lower 6 inches splits readily into thin 

 flakes, graduates into the nnderlying marl band, and is fossiliferous ; 

 but unfortunately, at Speeton, where it can be most easily examined, 

 the shells it contains appear to have suifered much from weathering 

 or sea-water, and I found it difficult to obtain many identifiable 

 specimens of fossils common in this bed. 



Pecten orbicularis, which is everywhere the most abundant form 

 in the '' Grey Bed," occurred commonly here ; except at this horizon, 

 I have not met with it in either the Chalk Marl or the Grey Chalk of 

 Lincolnshire or Yorkshire, though it is not confined to this bed in 

 the Chalk of the south of England. 



The chalk above this bed is very hard and nodular or lumpy ; the 

 lumps are separated by marly material, and the whole divided into 

 beds by strongly marked marl bands ; between these the bedding 

 is indefinite ; in some places, especially in the upper part, the marl 

 seems to be in excess, and its colour, which is bluish, greenish, or 

 buff'-grey, predominates, but neither marl nor colour is persistent at 

 the same horizon; the effect of this is to give a curiously inde- 

 finite appearance to the bedding and colour. 



Eive or six feet of this bed immediately above the lower course 

 are, at j^anny Goat's House, coloured pink and form the upper pink 

 band noted by other observers (see also "Coloured Bands," p. 354). 



Bed 6, Thickness 21 feet. At the base of this is another course, 

 3 feet thick, the massive and solid appearance of which takes the 

 eye at once along the face of the cliflP; its colour, buff grey, is inten- 

 sified by veins with which it is streaked ; a marked marl band, in 

 which Ostrea vesicularis, Terehratula hiplicata, and T. semiglohosa 

 are very abundant, divides it from the chalk below. Throughout 

 the remainder of this bed the chalk is white, hard, fairly smooth, 

 and divided into courses by thin marl bands. 



It will be seen that at Speeton the hard compact " Sponge-bed," 



