502 MESSES. WHITAKEE AND JUEES-BEOWNE ON [Aug. 1 894, 



The work was begun in 1877, and the Gault was pierced early in 



1879, Palaeozoic rocks being found below it at a depth of 79(>^ feet. 



A core of the PalaBozoic rock was examined by Mr. Etheridge, 



who found that it was full of Wenlock fossils, and he accordingly 



announced the existence of Upper Silurian Beds below Ware in a 



letter to the ' Times ' dated May 16th, 1879. 



A brief account of the boring was subsequently given by 



Mr. Jas. Barrow, 1 who assigned the following thicknesses to the 



several formations, but gave little geological information about 



them : — 



Shaft 34 feet ; the rest bored. 



Feet. 



Surface-earth, gravel, and sand 14 



r] ,, [Soft Chalk 416 



onaiK -j Cha]kMarl 12 s 



Upper Greensand 77 



Gault 160 



Lower Greensand 1^ 



Wenlock Shale, dipping 40° southward 35 



831J 



In 1880 Mr. Hopkinson published a paper ' On the Recent 

 Discovery of Silurian Bocks in Hertfordshire,' 2 but he did not 

 discuss the other formations. 



Mr. Etheridge adopted and reprinted Mr. Barrow's account of the 

 section in his Presidential Address to the Geological Society for 

 1881. 3 He added some further particulars about the Palaeozoic 

 rocks, but did not give any description of the Cretaceous rocks, nor did 

 he state the grounds on which thicknesses were assigned to the Chalk 

 Marl and Upper Greensand respectively. He repeatedly mentions 

 the occurrence of 18 inches of " Lower Greensand of the Carstone 

 type " below the Gault, but he gives no evidence for the identification 

 of any particular sample as ' Carstone,' and we cannot accept this 

 statement as proof of the existence of Lower Greensand. To this 

 point we shall recur in the sequel. 



No fuller account of the rocks traversed by this boring has ever 

 been published. The importance of the discovery of Silurian rocks 

 seems to have so dwarfed all interest in the Cretaceous beds, that no 

 careful examination of them was made at the time. Had Ware come 

 within the scope of any Geological Survey memoir that was in hand 

 alter the boring had been made, one of us would probably have hunted 

 for further information, as in the case of the Cheshunt (Turnford) 

 boring, of which a fairly full account has been printed (see p. 508). 



Fortunately the New River Company kept a set of specimens from 

 both borings, and their Engineer, Mr. J. Francis, having kindly 

 sent us portions of these, we are now able to give some details and 

 to correct the short statements already published about the boring 

 at Ware — statements which one of us has reproduced, though with 

 some doubts. 4 



1 Proc. S. Wales Inst. Engineers, vol. xi. no. 7 (1879), p. 322, pis. 50, 51. 



2 Trans. Watford Nat. Hist. Soc. vol. ii. pt. 7 (1880), p. 241, pi. ii. 



3 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xxxvii. (1881) Proc. p. 230. 



4 Irans. Herts. JS r at. Hist. Soc. vol. iii. pt. 5 (,1885), p. 179. 



