g4. THE GEOLOGIST. 



Stanway on the east, in the neighbourhood of Stroud and Painswick 

 on the south, and at Frocesterhill in the same direction, at all of which 

 places it is extensively quarried for economical purposes. 



Ascending along the steep path by the tramway to a higher quarry, 

 the full extent of the shelly freestone will be apparent ; but here the 

 student will observe that it is divided from a more fragmentary upper 

 band of the same character, to all appearance less fossiliferous, by a 

 cream-coloured marly limestone more or less consolidated, but very dif- 

 ferent in texture and in organic remains from the freestone. Like the 

 Pisolite below, it forms a well-marked line of demarcation, and may be 

 traced from the most eastern Cotswold extension of the Inferior Oolite 

 to its extreme southern limits, where it thins out and disappears. This 

 oolitic marl contains many fossils along the whole line of the Leck- 

 hampton escarpment, especially shells and corals ; and, as it is readily 

 acted upon by frost, these may be easily picked out of the matrix. Some 

 of them are distinctive and peculiar, differing from those of any other 

 bed, either in the Great or Inferior Oolite. Univalves are in places abun- 

 dant, and there are many species of Terebratul^, of which Terebratula 

 fimbria, with the test or shell preserved of a silvery whiteness, is the most 

 characteristic. At Leckhampton the corals are less abundant than in some 

 other localities, as at Crickley and Pitchcomb, where from their numbers 

 it may be inferred that they formed part of a small coral-reef beneath 

 the oolitic sea. At Miserden, in the vicinity of Stroud, this stratum 

 is very rich in organic remains, especially univalves, including some 

 long and peculiar ^^'erinae^e, and we strongly recommend the collector 

 to visit this spot, as well as Crickley and the quarries at Cleeve, near 

 tlie " Rising Sun ''' inn. He will at once recognise this band of marl by 

 its position, its fossils, and its chalky appearance wherever it occurs. If 

 ho will now climb to the top of the hill and turn to the left, 

 he will reach several quarries, the strata in which indicate 

 considerable lithological and zoological changes, implying oceanic 

 conditions differing widely from those of the inferior subdivisions of this 

 formation. In Sir R. I. Murchison-s ''Geology of Cheltenham,'' 

 edited by Messrs. Biickraan and Strickland, these upper beds are 

 locally termed - Trigonia-grit " and - Gryphite-grit," and are 

 underlaid by a brown, rubbly stone, full of well-preserved fossils ; 

 nbove Sandywcll Lane the last is charged with a zone of small Tere- 

 bratulrr-. As these upper grits are by no means constant in their 



