LOWER LIAS : AXMINSTER. 73 
TI feature in these beds. As already noticed (p. 9), evidences 
of contemporaneous erosion are not uncommon in other strata, in 
the Inferior Oolite, &c. 
At Uplyme the White Lias is directly overlaid by about 
10 inches of brown laminated marly clay as at Pinhay Bay ; above 
comes a band of sandy limestone, and then blue and pale grey 
limestones and clays, the lower portion of which represents the 
zone of Ammonites planorbis. This species has been met with, 
together with A. Johnstoni, and slabs covered with Ostrea liassica 
are noticeable. Spines of Cidaris and Hemipedina were observed 
by Dr. Wright.* Ghryphaa arcuata occurs within a few feet of the 
White Lias, and we find also Avicula, Modiola, and Waldheimia 
perforata. Lima giyantea appears in the higher beds, which no 
doubt represent portions of the zone of Am. angulatus. 
The Lower Lias limestones are well shown near Axminster, in 
quarries by the London and South- Western Railway north of Wey- 
croft. The beds have been worked for a long period, and their 
fossils early attracted the attention of Buckland, who was born 
at Axminster in 1784. He has given a description of the beds 
with the local quarrymen's names ; and it is noteworthy that the 
terms Burr (or Bur), Anvil, Size, and Firestone aro employed at 
this locality, and also at Uplyme. The names are applied without 
respect to relative horizon, but to the character and uses of the 
beds. The Burrs furnish good building-stone, so do the Anvils, 
which form " a bed of irregular anvil-shaped blocks." The 
Firestone, is a "white building-stone, used also for forming the 
arch-work of lime pits." The Red Size (described as " white lias 
inclining to grey ") is used for paving and building.f 
At Greatwood, north-west of Weycroft, the term Firestone is 
applied to a cherty limestone, and here, as well as in a quarry 
north-west of Longlea, Mr. C. Reid found thin beds of sandstone 
intercalated among the thick-bedded earthy limestones. Near 
Buckland St. Mary he noticed that the Lower Lias occasionally 
contains lenticular masses of impure lignite, such as are seen near 
Charmouth, 
We have no records near Axminster of the full thickness of 
the Blue Lias series, but the quarries do not show more than 
15 or 20 feet of stone-beds. Judging from the evidence obtain- 
able, there is reason for believing that the stone-beds of Lyme 
Regis rapidly diminish in thickness towards the north ; a large 
part of the zone of Ammonites Bucklandi being represented by 
clays with subordinate bands of stone, near Axminster and along 
the eastern borders of the vale of Taunton, as we know to be the 
oase further north along the Polden Hills. Modiola minima occurs 
in the bottom beds of rubbly limestone above the " White Rock ' ' 
(White Lias) at Tolhay ; there the beds above consist of dark 
blue clays and shales with interrupted layers of limestone, whose 
* Lias Ammonites (Palieontograph. Soc.), p. 21; see also Quart. Journ. Geol. 
Soc., vol. xvi. p. 397. 
f Buckland, Trans. Geol. Soc., Ser. 2. vol. i., p. 98 ; Reliquiae Diluvianse, Ed. 2, 
1824, p. 242. 
