84 
THE GEOLOGIST. 
Stanway on the east, in the neighbourhood of Stroud and Painswick 
on the south, and at Frocesterhill in the same direction, at all of which 
places it is extensively quarried for economical purposes. 
Ascending along the steep path by the tramway to a higher quarry, 
the full extent of the shelly freestone will be apparent ; but here the 
student will observe that it is divided from a more fragmentary upper 
band of the same character, to all appearance less fossiliferous, by a 
cream-coloured marlj' limestone more or less consolidated, but very dif- 
ferent in texture and in organic remains from the freestone. Like the 
Pisolite below, it forms a well-marked line of demarcation, and may be 
traced from the most eastern Cotswold extension of the Inferior Oolite 
to its extreme southern limits, where it thins out and disappears. This 
oolitic marl contains many fossils along the whole line of the Leck- 
hampton escarpment, especially shells and corals ; and, as it is readily 
acted upon by frost, these may be easily picked out of the matrix. Some 
of them are distinctive and peculiar, differing from those of any other 
bed, either in the Great or Inferior Oolite. Univalves are in places abun- 
dant, and there are many species of Terebratulse, of which Terebratula 
fimbria, with the test or shell preserved of a silvery whiteness, is the most 
characteristic. At Leckhampton the corals are less abundant than in some 
other localities, as at Crickley and Pitchcomb, where from their numbers 
it may be inferred that they formed part of a small coral-reef beneath 
the oolitic sea. At Miserden, in the vicinity of Stroud, this stratum 
is very rich in organic remains, especially univalves, including some 
long and peculiar Nerinaeae, and we strongly recommend the collector 
to visit this spot, as well as Crickley and the quarries at Cleeve, near 
the " Kising Sun " inn. He will at once recognise this band of marl by 
its position, its fossils, and its chalky appearance wherever it occurs. If 
he will now climb to the top of the hill and turn to the left, 
he will reach several quarries, the strata in which indicate 
considerable lithological and zoological changes, implying oceanic 
conditions differing widely from those of the inferior subdivisions of this 
formation. In Sir E. I. Murchison's " Geology of Cheltenham," 
edited by Messrs. Buckman and Strickland, these upper beds are 
locally termed " Trigonia-grit " and " Gryphite-grit," and are 
underlaid by a brown, rubbly stone, full of well-preserved fossils; 
above Sandywell Lane the last is charged with a zone of small Tere- 
bratula). As these upper grits are by no means constant in their 
