g2 THE GEOLOGIST. 



secret satisfaction in the discovery of a new fossil, of a flower, or an 

 insect hitherto unknown ; and even he, who does nothing more than 

 follow in the track of greater and wiser intellects, is at least a better man 

 than one who is content to pass through life without effecting anything 

 worthy of recording. With these few prefatory remarks of encourage- 

 ment to the beginner diffident of his own powers, or alarmed at the 

 difficulties besetting his path, we must pass on to the more immediate 

 purpose of this article. 



The Inferior Oolite is so called from its position below all the-other 

 oolitic rocks, and in the order of succession was, therefore, the first 

 formed of the group. It constitutes a very important and prominent 

 feature in the physical geology of Gloucestershire ; being thicker there 

 than in any other part of England, and yielding to no other portion of 

 the series in zoological interest. In the vicinity of Cheltenham it forms 

 really a great type section ; while the changes and modifications which 

 it undergoes in its extensions on the south and east are only such as 

 might be expected to occur in a cotemporary but distant sea-bottom, of 

 which the stratigraphical conditions would vary with, the remoteness 

 of the area, and the organic remains of one portion of which would 

 also be only partially identical with those of other portions. 



Leckhampton Hill, near Cheltenham, is one of the best places for 

 examining the strata in detail, and we should recommend the student 

 to commence his investigation at that spot. Ascending by the tramway 

 to the lowest portion of the section exposed on the right hand, the 

 basement beds will be found reposing on the clay of the Upper Lias, 

 although the latter is not always visible, on account of the cUhris fallen 

 from above. These basement beds " are here much reduced in 

 thickness, but elsewhere they are more largely developed ; and we 

 shall therefore reserve what we have to say about them until we 

 describe the localities where they are most advantageously exposed. 

 The stratum immediately above them is termed ''Pisolite" or pea- 

 grit, and is in many respects a remarkable bed, generally and readily 

 distinguished along the whole line of the outer escarpment of the 

 Cotswolds, from Paiuswick on the south to Cleeve and Whinchcomb 

 on the north-east. It is usually a hard, coarse, concretionary rock, 

 made \ip in a greater or less degree of small flat concretions, which 

 give it a singular aspect, and which might be taken for organized bodies 

 by tlie uninitiattHl, as they have sometimes small corals attached. It 



