82 
THE GEOLOGIST. 
secret satisfaction in the discovery of a new fossil, of a flower, or an 
insect hitherto unknown ; and even he, who does nothing more than 
follow in the track of greater and wiser intellects, is at least a better man 
than one who is content to pass through life without effecting anything 
worthy of recording. With these few prefatory remarks of encourage- 
ment to the beginner diffident of his own powers, or alarmed at the 
difficulties besetting his path, we must pass on to the more immediate 
purpose of this article. 
The Inferior Oolite is so called from its position below all the other 
oolitic rocks, and in the order of succession was, therefore, the first 
formed of the group. It constitutes a very important and prominent 
feature in the physical geology of Gloucestershire ; being thicker there 
than in any other part of England, and yielding to no other portion of 
the series in zoological interest. In the vicinity of Cheltenham it forms 
really a great type section ; while the changes and modifications which 
it undergoes in its extensions on the south and east are only such as 
might be expected to occur in a cotemporary but distant sea-bottom, of 
which the stratigraphical conditions would vary with the remoteness 
of the area, and the organic remains of one portion of which would 
also be only partially identical with those of other portions. 
Leckhamptou Hill, near Cheltenham, is one of the best places for 
examining the strata in detail, and we should recommend the student 
to commence his investigation at that spot. Ascending by the tramway 
to the lowest portion of the section exposed on the right hand, the 
basement beds will be found reposing on the clay of the Upper Lias, 
although the latter is not always visible, on account of the debris fallen 
from above. These " basement beds " are here much reduced in 
thickness, but elsewhere they are more largely developed ; and we 
shall therefore resei've what we have to say about them until we 
describe the localities where they are most advantageously exposed. 
The stratum immediately above them is termed " Pisolite " or pea- 
grit, and is in many respects a remarkable bed, generally and readily 
distinguished along the whole line of the outer escarpment of the 
Cotswolds, from Painswick on the south to Cleeve and Whinchcomb 
on the north-east. It is usually a hard, coarse, concretionary rock, 
made up in a greater or less degree of small flat concretions, which 
give it a singular aspect, and which might be taken for organized bodies 
by the uninitiated, as they have sometimes small corals attached. It 
