91 
There was a large attendance of members and friends, to hear Mr. 
Stood art's paper on the Lias beds at Horfield,for a preliminary account of 
which see p. 86. The paper was fully illustrated by diagrammatic sections 
of the quarries, &c, referred to, as well as by numerous fossils characteristic 
of the Lias series. 
After remarking that the Lower Lias beds round Bristol presented a 
complete epitome of the whole subject, but that they had been very little 
worked, and had not received the attention they deserved, and that the 
Palaeontology of this part of the Jurassic series was but little known, Mr. 
Stoddart said that the object of these observations was to form a ground- 
work for future study. The Lias was an argillaceous deposit, consisting 
of marls, clays, and solid limestone, which contained from 3 to 20 per 
cent, of alumina, which gave the Lias lime the property of t£ setting" 
under water. The arenaceous and ferruginous beds of the middle Lias, 
and their occurrence near Bristol, as well as their equivalent in Dundry, 
were first noticed ; a table was then exhibited, showing the order of 
sequence of the Bristol Lower Lias fossiliferous beds, and their characteristic 
fossils were mentioned. They were divided into three groups : — the Ammo- 
nites Bucklandi, or Lima beds ; the A. planorbis, or Ostrea beds, contain- 
ing the Sutton series ; and the Rheetic beds. The line of section which 
formed the subject of Mr. Stoddart's paper ran from a quarry north of 
No. 1 Orphan-house, Ashley Down, through Mr. Rossiter's farm at Mont- 
pelier, to Gotham Hill ; and the beds comprised in it extended from the 
Am. Turneri zone to the Keuper marls. All the beds dipped 8° to the 
N.E., and therefore appeared nearly horizontal ; as they dipped to the S.E. 
on the opposite side of the Severn, an anticlinal probably existed near the 
south bank of that river. The section of No. 1 quarry, Ashley Down, was 
first detailed, the beds being 17 feet 1 inch thick, and numbered 1 to 4, 
No. 2 containing many remains of Saurians, was an instance of the fact 
that a bone-bed frequently divided one set of strata from another. The 
beds in Mr. Rossiter's quarry reached a total thickness of 32 feet 2 inches, 
and were numbered 5 to 11, the most interesting being the Echinoderm 
beds, Nos. 7 and 8, which contained the spines of Hemipedina Bechei, 
and of Cidaris Edwardsi, as well as the jaws of Hemipedina, and valves of 
Cytheridfe. 
The details of Cotham Grove quarry were then given, the beds being 
numbered 12 to 18, and attaining a thickness of 14 feet 5 inches, about 
half of which was occupied by the so-called " Sutton series," the exact 
geological position of which had long been a subject of argument. When 
first discovered, as found at Bridgend, Glamorganshire, they were placed 
by Mr. Tawney and others in the Rhsetic series, while on the other hand 
Mr.Bristow asserted that they belonged to the A. planorbis zone. This sec- 
tion decidedly proved the latter opinion to be correct, as the Planorbis 
