48 Notes on Wiltshire Geology and Palaeontology. 



also of the Inferior Oolite and the Upper Lias, which, in this part 

 of the county, are only seen at Limpley Stoke and Freshford. 



For this reason, although the latter are, when well exposed, 

 crowded with organic remains, some of them of much interest, no 

 reference is needed to them here, and the same may be said of the 

 Fuller's Earth. 



The Great Oolite above has the first claim to our attention, more 

 especially as its freestone forms one of the staple trades of Bradford 

 and its neighbourhood. Its beds are composed either of minute 

 calcareous egg-like non-organic concretions, or of comminuted shells, 

 reunited by a calcareous paste ; included in which are various forms 

 of contemporary mollusca, occasional teeth of fishes, whose carti- 

 lagenous skeletons have altogether perished, with a mixture of corals, 

 bryozoa, &c Although these remains are repeatedly to be observed 

 in the beds of this district, they are not to be compared in richness 

 with those of the Gloucestershire Cotteswolds, which have yielded 

 more than four hundred species. But the palseontological character 

 of the Great Oolite at Bradford is redeemed by one most interesting 

 organism, the Apioerinus rotundus, or Pear Encrinite. Whilst the 

 Great Oolite was being deposited, or rather at a period of rest after 

 deposition, there lived at Bradford a colony of these interesting 

 creatures. They are chiefly confined to the upper surface of the 

 beds, to which they were attached by a broad or sucker-like base ; 

 from this sprang a stem composed of a number of disc-like plates, on 

 which the pear-shaped body was superimposed, and in the centre of 

 which the mouth of the animal was placed. On its outer edge a 

 series of flexible many -jointed arms was arranged, ever ready to 

 seize and convey to its mouth any unwary creatures that came 

 within their reach. This colony of gracefully-waving organisms 

 would have been an interesting one, when living, for a naturalist to 

 have looked down upon, especially as very few of the family now 

 exist. After living as I have described, a change came and they 

 were all destroyed by an irruption of mud into the sea, the deposit 

 being geologically known as the Bradford Clay. It is very local, 

 and scarcely to be recognized elsewhere, even at Hampton Down, 

 near Bath, although a few scattered encrinital plates are found, the 



