736 PROF, J. BUCKMAN ON THE MIDFORD SANDS. 
56. On the so-called Miprorp SAnps. 
By Prof. J. Buckman, F.G.8., F.L.S. (Read June 25, 1879.) 
Ar the village of Midford, some three miles to the south of Bath, 
is a fine section of the upper beds of the Inferior Oolite rock, con- 
sisting of a cap of oolitic freestones of some 20 feet in thickness, 
resting upon a mass of sand, of which 25 feet are exposed at the 
station, and which presents all the features of the sand at Bradford 
Abbas and Bridport Harbour, as the sands are loose, vary in colour, 
and present occasional bands of hard compact stone. 
From these sands being so well shown at this place, Prof. Phillips 
was induced to name them, after the village, the ‘‘ Mrprorp Sawps ;” 
and he thus writes upon the section :— 5 
“Tf we wish to draw a hard limit of mineral deposits, it should 
probably be between the sand and its calcareous cover (which is 
often absent); but if we desire to study organic sequence, we shall 
unite the sands and their shelly cap into a transition group” *. 
Now as this “shelly cap” is the one so highly charged with Cepha- 
lopoda we further quote the following :— 
“The ‘Cephalopoda-bed, as Dr. Wright proposes to call the cap 
limestone of this sandy series, exists where the shells to which it 
owes its name were specially abundant, or by some natural circum- 
stances were brought together. It is not known in the valleys of 
the Cherwell or Evenlode, and very partially in any of the branches 
of the Windrush, Coln, or Churn; but on the western front of the 
Cotswold cliffs it extends from Cleeve-cloud to Wotton-under-Kdge, 
appears on the Dorsetshire coast near Bridport, and is recognized in 
France 7. 
Mr. Woodward, in his ‘Geology of England and Wales, adopts 
thename given by Professor Phillips, as follows :— 
“‘Midford is a little hamlet about three miles south of Bath, and 
it was there that William Smith first studied the Sands, and called 
them the ‘ Sand of the Inferior Oolite.’ 
“They are very well developed at Nailsworth and Frocester, and 
the names of these places have been locally used to designate the 
Sands. 
“« They consist of micaceous yellow sands, with occasional beds of 
concretionary sandstone or sandy limestone called ‘sand bats’ or 
‘sand burrs,’ which sometimes contain organic remains; and they 
are capped by a brown marly iron-shot limestone, one to three feet 
in thickness, which yields numerous species of Ammonites, Belem- 
nites, and Nautili, whence this bed has been termed by Dr. Wright 
the ‘Cephalopoda-bed’+, while the series has been termed the 
‘ Ammonite-sands’ by Mr. Hull” §. 
Now it is the object of this paper to show that Prof. Phillips has 
* Geology of Oxford and the Valley of the Thames, p. 118 (1871). 
+ Ibid. p: 119! { “Dr. Wright termed the series Upper Lias Sands.” 
§ P. 168. Article “ Midford Sands,” 
