NORWOOD — GEOLOGY OF HOTHAM. 



477 



" Upper Lias " bed. I suggested, on this evidence, that it vras 

 probably such at the Geological Section at Leeds. '^j opinion, 

 however, has since been shaken by the discovery, among my Hotham 

 fossils, of a specimen of Huinites aljectus, the matrix of which leads me 

 strongly to suspect that it was obtained from the Ligniferous ^arl." 

 It is, then, for these reasons that I desire to leave that zone altogether 

 sub judice until I can see it again, or until it shall be seen bv some 

 more competent person. As to the conditions of its deposit — ^judging 

 from the unbroken state of all its organisms, small and frail as many 

 of them were, with the sinrjie and remarkable exception of its rolled 

 and fragmentary remains of land-plants, and reasoning from analogy 

 about the habitats of the fossils themselves during life, it would 

 appear that this bed was very tranquilly laid down in a shallow sea, 

 near the mouth of some ancient river which watered a land with a 

 genial climate, and bore away, amid the spoils of its banks and jungles, 

 a fern related to the common Polypody. 



lY. Proceeding from the Ligniferous ^XTarl " pit ! towards 

 Drewton, we immediately come upon a thin bed of chalk-drift, which 

 conceals the contact of the subjacent rocks, and arrive, in about 100 

 yards, as nearly as I can remember, at a large Oolitic quarry on the 

 right-hand side. I am at present unable to say by what kind of 

 transition the marl-band passes into this very dissimilar Oolitic rock ; 

 but obviously this is a point which it would be very interesting to 

 clear up. ''Hotham Quarry " is one of many more such like, which* 

 follow the line of these oolites northwards from the Humber, and were, 

 no doubt, opened originally for the erection of the neighbouring 

 villages and churches, the last being chiefly of ^Torman foundation. 

 Several of these old quarries have been partially filled up and brought 

 again under the plough in recent times ; as is the case with those at 

 Drewton, which, with one inconsiderable exception, are now only to 

 be traced by inequalities in the ground. For the most part, however, 

 they remain open still; and, where they are not grass-grown but 

 continue in use for the roads or for lime-burning, they afi'ord excellent 

 facilities for geological examination. It is possible that they might 

 be found, upon a survey, to be situated in different Oolitic zones ; and 

 so would require to be studied for some distance north and south, in 

 order to obtain a fuU and perfect exposition of the Oolites at Cave. 

 Hence it will be necessary for me to confine myself in this description, 



