394 ME. L. RICHARDSON ON THE RH^TIC [-A-Ug. I903, 



laterally into a greenish fine-grained rock without these markings ; 

 also into a cream-coloured, somewhat laminated rock. 



Immediately above the Estheria-Bzd, or separated therefrom by a 

 thin clayey deposit, is a gritty band from -J- to 2 inches thick. In one 

 part of the section (more towards the north-east) the Estheria- 

 Bed is separated from the next hard stratum by 2 feet of deposit, 

 but in another the intervening deposit is as much as 3 feet 4 inches 

 thick. Where the former thickDess was obtained at a horizon 

 1 foot above the Esther ia -Bed, ostracods were most abundant — their 

 exact position being indicated by a yellowish streak. Prof. T. R. 

 Jones, F.R.S., kindly examined these, and reported that they in- 

 cluded Darwinula liassica and varieties. I observed ostracods at 

 the same horizon — at least, 1 foot below the Cotham Marble — in 

 the Lilliput cutting on the South Wales Direct Line near Chipping 

 Sodbury. The shales whence the ostracods are procurable are 

 Bed M of Wilson. I was unable to see the Cotham Marble exhibit- 

 ing arborescent markings. That it is present in such a form, 

 however, is shown by the information supplied to Brodie by 

 Higgins. 



My investigations showed that the basement-bed of the Lower 

 Lias is conglomeratic, and that below — to which the conglomerate 

 adheres — is sometimes present a limestone having a peculiar 

 flinty fracture. This thin layer of conglomerate indicates a non- 

 sequence. In places the conglomerate rests upon this limestone 

 (Cotham Marble), and in others upon the shales (Bed 2). Fallen 

 masses on the beach also showed that the conglomerate, in some 

 places was attached to a limestone-bed, in others that this limestone- 

 stratum was absent (several masses exhibited thin remnants of lime- 

 stone, bored, just below the conglomerate) ; and also that when this 

 Cotham Marble was absent the conglomerate was attached to the 

 next bed in ascending order — sometimes a fissile limestone, and 

 sometimes a stratum crowded with Ostrea. 



It would appear, according to the classification which I followed 

 in North- West Gloucestershire, and also in the case of a section 

 at Woodnorton, near Evesham, 1 that the fissile bed and the con- 

 glomerate (the latter on about the horizon of the Pseudomonotis-Bed 

 of that locality) were classed with the Upper Rhsetic ; indeed, it 

 is highly probable that the band of Ostrea is the equivalent of the 

 k Bottom-Bed ' of those sections, and that the fissile limestone is 

 the equivalent of the shales {pars) intervening between the 



I Bottom-Bed ' and the Pseudomonotis-Bed of the Wainlode and 

 Garden-Cliff sections. In connection with the conglomerate-bed, 

 it may be noted that the reman ie bed of Lassington occurs 



II feet 4 inches below deposits known to yield Psiloceras jolanorbis. 2 

 The Lower Liassic beds succeed, and present the faunal and 



lithological characters so well known in the West of England. 



1 Geol. Mag. 1903, p. 82. 



2 'The Jurassic Eocks of Britain' vol. iii, Mem. Geol. Surv. (1893) p. 141. 



