BRODIE — GEOLOGY OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE. 



85 



presence or in their distinctive cliaracters southwards, often being 

 inseparable, the term Eagstone " is perhaps a better one for the whoh 

 set, the thickness of which would amount to 38 feet. The Gryphite 

 grit " is a coarse calcareous grit, readily distinguished by the abundance 

 of Gryphaea Buckmanni and G. Cymbium, whence its name. Masses 

 of these shells are piled in heaps, and cannot fail to attract the 

 attention of the geologist, who does not, if he is a careful observer, 

 allow any fact, however apparently trifling, to escape him ; as it 

 may help him to read the history of the past, and perhaps may prove 

 to be one of the clues to a correct comprehension of some impor- 

 tant fact. Among the numerous fossils associated with these 

 gryphites are occasionally some very large Ammonites, with Ostrea 

 Marshii, Pholadomya, and other fossils, mostly in the form of 

 casts ; but at Eodborough Hill, facing Stroud, though much reduced in 

 thickness, the grit is loaded with well-preserved testacea. Palatal teeth 

 of fishes (Acrodus) are occasionally met with there, though scarcely a 

 trace of anything of this kind has been detected in any other of the 

 inferior subdivisions, excepting in the bone-bed at the base of the 

 series at Crickley Hill. As the Trigonia grit " is not well developed at 

 Leckhampton, and the higher beds are not seen there at all, we 

 must seek them elsewhere, in a southern or north-easterly direction. 

 Thus, at a roadside cutting, called Cold Comfort, five miles south-east 

 of Cheltenham, there is a thin layer of clay and stone dividing the 

 " Gryphite grit " from the Trigonia grit," abounding in univalve and 

 bivalve shells, which are often entire : it is characterized by the large 

 Perna mytiloides. 



E'ear E"aunton and Stowe-on-the-Wold, there is a rough white 

 oolitic stone, forming the highest zone of the Inferior Oolite, loaded 

 with specimens of Clypeus Plotii and jN'ucleolites cluuicularis, with Lima 

 gibbosa and other shells. On the Stow road, at Hampden Earm, 

 beyond Andoversford, the Trigonia grit " is satisfactorily exhibited, 

 and consists of a coarse, ragged limestone almost made up of Trigonia 

 costata, T. clavellata, Terebratula globata, &c. At Eodborough Hill 

 it is about eight feet thick, and in that district occurs as a hard lime- 

 stone, more or less sandy or argillaceous, and almost entirely made up of 

 shells. In this part of the series a very pretty shell, Ehynchonella 

 spinosa, is of frequent occurrence ; the test is usually retained, and even 

 the long slender spines may now and then be detected. As this fossil 



