PROF. J. BUCKMAN ON THE MIDFORD SANDS. 741 
working as the Ham-Hill section. This latter is the highest and 
deepest-worked of the series. 
Section at Mr. Trask’s Quarry, at Doulting. 
MeeeWhewuppermbeds)Genuded. Ae nemncsecteccseoreececsesdsecssncsccuencececseesnce ft. in. 
2. eee white freestone, more or less made up of comminuted >10 0 
shells 
3. Blocks of freestone used for best building-stone..............:seeseeeeeees 25 0 
Pome e ete eee meee erro een sere eases sass eas essseteseastasesssssssssssserrasess 
This section shows that the Ham-Hill equivalent has been denuded 
from the upper part of the quarry, while the beds below the freestone 
are covered up; but, judging from the district, we conclude that the 
building-stone is underlain by the blue or grey bed, and this, again, 
by some sands. 
At Milborne Wyck we have beneath the fossiliferous or Cephalo- 
poda-bed beds much of the same character as those at Doulting ; but 
here the colour is neither foxy nor wholly white, but is occasionally 
tinctured with green grains, probably derived from some phosphatic 
salt. 
From these remarks it will be seen that the composition of the 
bed under review is so very variable that the mistakes made in its 
reading may be easily accounted for, as the difference between a 
thick rock of yellowish sand only occasionally interrupted by bands 
and pot-lids of shelly oolite occupying a thickness of over 100 feet. 
The ochraceous building-stone at Ham Hill and the Doulting beds, 
as also their equivalents in Gloucestershire, are of about the same 
thickness. The differences here noted, then, are very marked, so 
far as lithological structure is concerned ; the thicknesses at the same 
time very nearly accord. It is not true, then, that “the Inferior 
Oolite, which near Yeovil immediately overlies the sands, 1s com- 
paratively thin, in consequence of the absence of the thick-bedded 
limestones which impart such a thickness to this formation in 
Gloucestershire” *. 
The so-called Midford Sands, the sands at Bradford and near 
Sherborne, together with the building-stones at Ham Hill, Doulting, 
and other places, are neither more nor less than Inferior Oolite, as 
they are all on the same horizon as the middle and lower beds of 
this rock which are so well exposed over the Cotteswolds. 
Now inasmuch as the sands to which Prof. Phillips gave the 
name of “ Midford Sands” are not the same as the sands in Glouces- 
tershire, but belong to a higher (Oolitic) series of beds, the proposed 
name will in no wise solve the difficulty ; and we feel convinced that 
had Prof. Phillips been made acquainted with the true nature of the 
sands of Somerset and Dorset, as now explained, he would never 
have proposed it. 
We look upon it, then, that the Inferior Oolite is of about the same 
thickness in Somerset and Dorset as in Gloucestershire ; there is no 
missing link, as some have attempted to explain ; still, however, the 
lithology differs from that of the Cotteswolds, but not more than 
may be observed in different parts of the Cotteswolds themselves, or 
* Quart. Journ, Geol. Soe. vol. xvi. p. 34. 
