LOWEU LIAS : WORCESTERSHIRE. 147 
Beds " by J, Buckman and Strickland. Among other fossils are 
Fish-remains, Dapedius orbis, Crustaceans of the genus Eryon, 
and Plant-remains, such as Otozamites. Specimens of Ammonites 
Johnstoni are known to the quarrymen us " clock-faces," and 
this species is more common than A. planorbis. Pleuromya 
crowcombeia is also found in places. The best section that I saw, 
during my examination of this part of the country, was at a 
lime-kiln north of Croome D'Abitot. It was as follows {see Fig. 
51):- 
FT. IN. 
Brown soil, and contorted rubble of limestone 5 
f Grey clay with thin bands of limestone - 50 
T T J Blue limestone with Ostrea liassica and 
Lower Lias ,4 Mo ^ _ .04 
I Clay with band of bluish-grey limestone 1 
|" Hard blue and rather compact limestone 7 
DI, * T> A J Shaly clay - - - - .08 
' 1 Pale grey earthy limestone " Bottom Bed," 
I with Cardium rhaticum 4 
The limestones above the Bottom Bed are used for building- 
and paving- purposes ; the Bottom Bed and the " rubbish " are 
burnt for lime. Comparing this section with that at Strensham, 
we find a general correspondence in the lower beds. The strata at 
the time of my visit were exposed along a quarry -face extending 
East and West. The soil was a reddish-brown sandy clay with 
quartz and other pebbles, and the top limestone-bands were 
nipped up and broken along the successive folds, as if by Glacial 
agency. The soil was evidently in part the relics of a Drift accu- 
mulation. The disturbances are similar to those seen in a quarry 
near Littleton, Evesham, and probably like the contorted beds (of 
Rhastic limestone) noted by Strickland in the railway-cutting at 
Dunhampstead. 
Strickland published, in 1840, accounts of the railway-cuttings 
between Ashchurch and Dunhampstead, and as early as 1834 he 
had mapped out the boundary of the Lower Lias in Worcester- 
shire.* His observations led him to the conclusion that there 
were at least five well-marked successions in the Molluscan fauna 
of the Lias, in the district extending from the Worcestershire 
borders to Cheltenham, ranging through a thickness of five or six 
hundred feet, and unaccompanied by any change in the mineral 
character of the deposit, f 
Higher beds of Lower Lias belonging to the zones of Ammonites 
angulatus and A. Bucklandi stretch across the country from Down 
Hatherly towards Stoke Orchard. At Piff's Elm, Boddington, 
limestones were formerly quarried, and there Lima gigantea and 
Cardinia ovalis Avere met with.J 
The region from Cheltenham northwards along the borders 
of Worcestershire and Warwickshire, is especially rich in species 
of Cardinia, and it appears likewise to have been the favoured 
* Nat. Hist, of Worcestershire, by Dr. C. Hastings, 1834. 
f Proc. Geol. Soc., vol. iii. p. 314 ; Trans. Geol. Soc., vol. vi. p. 551 ; Memoirs, 
p. 137. 
% Brodie, Geologist, vol. i. p. 375. 
K 2 
