BllODIE — GHOLOGY OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE. 83 
contains a great variety of fossils, often well preserved, consisting of 
marine shells, corals, and echinoderms ; the latter are more numerous, 
both in genera and individuals, in this bed, than in any other por- 
tion of the Inferior Oolite. Among the testacea arc some hne and 
well-preserved Terebratulte, among which Terebratula simplex and 
Terebratula plicata may be especially enumerated. The surfaces of the 
blocks are often covered with corals and shells, with fragments of 
Pentacrinites and claws of crabs, and deserve a careful scrutiny. 
The pisolite is 38 feet thick at Leckhampton, and 40 feet at Crickley 
Hill. It should be observed that many organic remains are peculiar 
to it, and occur nowhere else in the series. 
A remarkable change is to be noted in the overlying stratum, the free- 
stone, both lithologically and zoologically. It is a fine-grained, yellowish 
oolite, closely resembling that of Bath, a portion of it being good and 
useful for building. In the upper part there are very few fossils, bat the 
lower portion is almost entirely made up of small shells, in a more or 
less comminuted state. Nevertheless, by a diligent search, a series of 
pretty specimens may be obtained at this spot. These broken shells 
exist also along the western face of the hill towards Crickley. At first 
sight this stratum appears less rich in specimens than the other divisions 
of the Inferior Oolite ; it has yielded, however, upwards of 160 species 
of small shells, the bivalves preponderating in number over the univalves. 
A few species are limited to the freestone, but others range indis- 
criminately throughout the group. A considerable number agree speci- 
fically with forms in the Great Oolite, especially with those of the more 
shelly beds, in which the marine conditions appear to have been repeated 
to a certain extent, and which, in other respects, were evidently very 
similar. This fact is more to be regarded because, as a general rule, the 
species in the Inferior and Great Oolites are quite distiuct, although the 
genera are for the most part alike. The worn and imperfect condition of the 
shells shows that the sea in which the freestone was deposited was subject 
to the movements of frequent and variable currents, which broke 
up and triturated any organic bodies accumulated therein. In this 
respect, too, it resembles the Great Oolite. The thickness of the 
lower freestone is 106 feet. This rock affords a very good example 
of the oolitic character, the small inorganic oval grains and shelly 
matter being cemented together by carbonate of lime. The freestone 
is present in other parts of the Cotswolds ; as at Cleeve, Broadway, and 
K 2 
