374 
THE GEOLOGIST. 
belonging to the New lied Sandstone formation. These "basement- 
beds" present many features of novelty and interest, as might bo 
expected from their position. They usually lie at some depth, and 
have, in most cases, been brought to the surface either by a gradual 
upheaval of the inferior deposit, or else they crop out in their duo order 
as they approach the Red Marl. While, therefore, the major portion 
of the Lower Lias spreads over the Yale of Gloucester, and constitutes 
a level tract of country, the lowest part forms low undulating hills, 
■which become a prominent feature in the landscape, especially when it 
presents bold cliffs on the banks of the Severn, as at Wainlode, four 
miles north of Gloucester ; at Westbury, seven miles south-west of that 
city ; and again at Aust-passage, near Bristol. A.t Wainlode there are 
about thirty-five feet of Lias overlying sixty-five feet of lied and Green 
Marls. Near the summit below a mass of black clay is a thin land of 
hard limestone, full of oysters and modiola), succeeded by ten inches of 
yellow shale, below which occurs a layer of limestone, having a lami- 
nated structure, but very hard when not weathered, in v/hioh, many 
years ago, we discovered the first remains of insects in the Lias of this 
district, and which have since been obtained in greater or less abundance 
wherever the same limestone has been quarried in its extension into 
Somersetshire, Yforccstershire, and Warwickshire. In Gloucestershire, 
for the most part, it consists of one stratum of stone not exceeding two 
feet in thickness; and although in the counties of Worcester, Warwick, 
and Leicester, there are three or four beds divided by shale, its litho- 
logical characters are identical, and it is thus readily recognized, inde- 
pendently of its peculiar and distinctive organisms, which differ widely 
from those- of the other limestones in this group. At Garden Cliff, 
Westbury-on-Severn, it is full two feet thick, and is loaded with a 
profusion of Ilonotis decussata, a small bivalve shell belonging to the 
family Aviculida?, and a few remnants of insects. From Wainlode it 
may be traced to Hasfield, on the opposite side of the river, Appcrley, 
Norton, Coombe Hill, Forthampton, near Tewkesbury, and thence by 
Brockeridge, Strensham, and DefFord. Very few shells occur with the 
insects, and those chiefly ostrea and modiola?, and rarely monotis, 
but they are generally associated with a decapod crustacean, Unjon 
Barroviensis, which, in Warwickshire, attains a large size, and is 
in a good state of preservation. A few fish, though still rare, have 
been found in this limestone ; and in Warwickshire and Leicestershire 
