Vol. 6$.~] INFERIOR OOLITE OF THE BATH-DOTJLTING DISTRICT. 391 



Dundry. Since this stratum has only been observed in the Doulting 

 area in the railway-cutting, and at a small wayside exposure about 

 a quarter of a mile away to the west-north-west, not much can be 

 said concerning its geographical extent. But probably, in ap- 

 proaching the Mendip Hills, it is overstepped by the Doulting Stone, 

 while to the south it loses its conglomeratic characters. 



With regard to the deposits upon which the ' Conglomerate- 

 Bed ' rests, but little information has been obtained. Probably, as 

 is the case between the Mendip Hills and Bath, they are of very 

 different dates. 



In the railway- cutting there is no deposit visible worthy of the 

 name of * Sands,' as at Timsbury Sleight, near Hadstock. The ' Con- 

 glomerate-Bed ' rests directly upon arenaceous shaly clay, off which 

 water runs. That ' Sands ' are present in the neighbourhood, 

 however, is apparent from the researches of Mr. H. B. Woodward 

 and Mr. W. H. Hudleston. In the now grass-grown slopes of 

 the western portion of the railway- cutting, Mr. Woodward x has 

 recorded the following succession : — 



' ( Thin sandy and argillaceous marls. 



Light-coloured ironshot limestone, with small, irregular, brown cal- 



About ; careous and ferruginous nodules. Terebratula. 

 200 feet. ") Yellow, oolitic, shelly limestone, with sand ; some beds 18 inches in 

 thickness. Belemnites. 

 ( Brown, ironshot, sandy limestones. 

 Midford Sands.' 



Whatever sand-deposit is present, it is not now visible, and, 

 moreover, it is capped by a clay-deposit upon which the ' Con- 

 glomerate-Bed ' rests. This superposition of a clay-bed upon the 

 ' Sands ' is reminiscent of the succession of beds at Crickley Hill, 

 near Cheltenham, where the JScissum-Beds are separated from a 

 sand-deposit by clay 1 to 2 feet thick. 2 



The clay-bed and underlying ' Sands ' in the Doulting railway- 

 cutting are yost-bifrontis and certainly •pre-Struckmanni — probably 

 ^tq- striatuli. Deposits of falciferi and bifrontis hemerae are seen 

 in a quarry at Mays Down, about a mile and a half to the south of 

 Doulting, with the massive Marlstone of spinati date below. 3 



Immediately below the ' Conglomerate-Bed,'* in a small exposure 

 in the bank by the side of the main road, where it descends the 

 escarpment between Doulting and Shepton Mallet, I observed (in 

 1905) a bed not present in the railway- cutting at the place where 

 I examined the junction of the Lias and Inferior Oolite. This 

 stratum was a brownish ironshot limestone, in all respects similar 

 to the harder portions of the deposit of striatuli hemera at Tims- 

 bury Sleight. It yielded fragments of a Grammoceras, probably 

 Gr. toarciense, and also two species of the genus BliynchoneTla. 

 There is no doubt about its age ; it is of the striatuli hemera. 



1 ' Geology of the East Somerset & the Bristol Coalfields ' Mem. Geol. Surv. 

 1876, p. 124. 



2 Proc. Cotteswold Nat. P.-C. vol. xv, pt. iii (1906) p. 184. 



3 Geol. Mag. 1906, p. 368. 



