72 
Arrived at Gloucester, the party waited half an hour, and then took the 
Great Western train to Longhope, the first station after Grange Court, on 
the Hereford, Ross, and Gloucester Railway. The object of the excursion 
was to visit various quarries and sections in which the lower series of 
strata belonging to the Upper Silurian group were well displayed, and to 
obtain their characteristic fossils. As the dip of the beds was S.W., and 
the direction of the route taken by the party was N.E., it follows that the 
beds first visited were, geologically speaking, the latest, or most recent, 
while the end of the excursion, the summit of May Hill, was not only the 
highest ground, but also the earliest, geologically, of this interesting 
series of beds, being in fact the base of the Upper Silurian series, and 
known in other localities as the Upper Llandovery rocks. Professor 
Sedgwick was the first to point out the necessity for separating these beds 
from the Lower Silurian, and proposed the name of May Hill Sandstone 
for them — (Geol. Jour., vol. ix., p. 215)— showing that while the Lower 
Llandovery rocks always adhered to and formed the top of the Lower 
Silurian series, this set of rocks lay widely unconformably to them, but 
always lay conformably beneath the beds then recognised as Upper 
Silurian, with which therefore they ought to be classed. 
The first quarry visited was close to the Longhope station, and in it the 
olive-green micaceous shale of the Upper Ludlow series was well displayed. 
Owing to the large angle of the dip, the sides were somewhat steep, but 
the soft shaly character of the rock made it easy to work, and several very 
good specimens were obtained. The same locality was revisited in the 
evening, and the following fossils, among others, rewarded the collectors. 
Serpulites longissimus, Tentaculites (? annulatus) Orthoceras, 2 species, 
Lituites, Theca, Orthonota, Lingula (?), Chonetes, Atrypa reticularis, and 
Rhynchonella, Chonetes being so abundant that in many spots the 
shale was almost replaced by limestone resulting from the thickness with 
which these shells were packed together. 
Ascending a lane above this quarry, the junction of the Ludlow and 
Wenlock groups was noticed, a great many fossils being picked up in the 
footpath, and from the banks under the edges on either side of the lane ; 
many of these were in a fine state of preservation, having been washed 
out from the rock in which they were imbedded. A great many specie? 
and specimens of coral were noticed, as well as the following : — Phacops 
(a trilobite) Atrypa reticularis, A. hemispherica, Euomphalus funatus, 
Spirifer. 
On the ridge of the hill at the end of this lane are some quarrries in the 
Wenlock limestone which are worked for the sake of the lime procurable 
from them. The kilns for burning the lime are close at hand. A few 
characteristic fossils were obtained in the quarries, but the richest ground 
