JURASSIC OF THE PAEIS BASIIST. 



551 



great depressions of the subjacent limestones, and at places 20 feet 

 thick. The corals are Thamnastrcea and Calamojphyllia ; and Cidaris 

 florigemma and C. Smithii also abound, with Littorina muricata, 

 Pseudomelania Coquandi ?, Natica corallina, Pholadomya Tombecki, 

 Corbicella sp., Ostrea gregaria, and Acrosalenia sp. Underlying 

 this are 20 feet of shelly oolites, in which the fossils are badly pre- 

 served, Trigonia corallina (?) and Opis corallina being the chief noted. 

 Below these again are 4 feet of rubble (with Hinnites velatus), and 

 then 3 feet of oolite. This quarry does not appear to have been de- 

 scribed before ; but it is of considerable importance as showing the 

 rapid development of coral-growth, since, not a mile away, only the 

 feeblest representative is seen in the cliff. In the other direction, 

 towards Auberville, however, it becomes perhaps of still greater im- 

 portance ; for at Benerville admirable coral-masses are developed, and 

 slip down onto the sea-shore. These are of considerable thickness, 

 and contain a crowd of all the usual Rag fossils, as at Trouville ; they 

 are underlain by oolitic stone and unfossiliferous clay. The whole 

 mass, however, is out of place ; and no stratigraphical data are obtain- 

 able. Hebert does not notice this, though he describes the clay 

 onto which it has slipped as crowded with Oxfordian fossils. At 

 Yillers only fragments are now visible ; and, according to Hebert's 

 section, the reef is dying out ; for he indicates only about 16 feet 

 of limestones and marls, including the Jlorigemma-mg. From the 

 position which this rag occupies with relation to the beds below, and, 

 as will be seen, to the beds above also, it follows that it occupies the 

 place of the " Sandsfcot Clay," and possibly of the lowest bed also of 

 the " Sandsfoot Grit," many of the fossils of which are common to it. 

 It is, however, so intimately connected with the subjacent oolites, as 

 to make it difficult to range the two in different subdivisions of the 

 geological series. 



Above the representative of the Coral Hag at Hennecqville, where 

 alone any higher beds are seen on the coast, come calcareous grits 

 and sands, admirably representing (as will be seen) the Sandsfoot- 

 Castle beds. For the lower 15 feet they are marly sandstones with 

 Pseudomelania striata and a narrow Nerincm ; then comes a hard 

 calcareous grit, called by Caumont the Blangy limestone, from its 

 being worked at a village of that name ; and above this a series of 

 beds varying very much in thickness, containing, towards the base, 

 white hummocky calcareous grits with intervening yellow sand and 

 beds of Trigonia muricata ; then fucoidal grits and sands, with great 

 masses of black flints, dying out to nothing (one was noticed 3 feet 

 thick by 16 feet long) ; and at the top honeycombed masses of soft 

 and hard sandy beds, the cap being especially hard, and serving as 

 a ledge on which the overlying clay appears to rest conformably, 

 though it has doubtless slipped down and covered the intervening 

 beds seen further east at Villerville, and blocks of which here strew 

 the strand. The whole thickness of these is nearly 40 feet; and 

 they contain also Ammonites varicostatus, Ghemnitzia delta, and 

 Pinna granulata. 



So far the section, instructive both by its resemblances and by 



