INFERIOR OOLITE SERIES: BATH. 95 
of Rhynchonella spinosa in the bottom beds of the Inferior 
Oolite between Bath and Bradford-on-Avon was pointed out 
by Sir W. V. Guise,* and more recent observations confirm this. 
It is noteworthy that while the Great Oolite is so well 
developed near Bath, the Inferior Oolite is less conspicuous, but 
the excellence of the former stone has, no doubt, prevented the 
opening up of the latter rock in places where under other 
circumstances it might have been worked for local use. Compara- 
tively speaking, the Inferior Oolite of this neighbourhood yields 
but a poor stone, and for this reason it was originally known as 
the Bastard Freestone,! for it abounds with vacuities like the 
Portland " roach," and much of it is soft and unfit for use. As 
remarked by the Rev. Joseph Townsend, " It everywhere reclines 
on calcareous sand, which is used by our cooks, at Bath, to sand 
their kitchens, and is procured for them on the hills behind 
Camden Place, and Sydney Gardens." 
The sands are now rarely opened up in the hills around Bath ; 
but their occurrence seems to be tolerably persistent, although 
the thickness is very irregular. At Charlcombe they are said to 
be about 70 feet in thickness ; but they vary from 40 feet (and 
less) to as much as 100 feet. The following Well-section at 
America Buildings, Lansdown, was recorded by De la Beche J : 
FT. 
Fuller's Earth . Light clay - 20 
Inferior Oolite - Oolite - - 30 
Midford Sand - Sand . - 100 
Lias *- - Blue clay - 24 
174 
Reference has been previously made to the Midford Sand, and 
to the observations of \Villiam Smith and John Phillips. (See 
p. 52.) Fine sections of the strata were exposed in the railway- 
cuttings between Midford and Bath : the long tunnel (1,900 yards) 
through Combe Down being almost entirely excavated in these 
beds, the only exception being a trace of Inferior Oolite which 
was faulted in near the middle of the tunnel. 
These beds rest on thin representatives of the Upper Lias clay 
and limestone. They contain bands and nodules of sandy lime- 
stone or calcareous sandstone (" sand-burrs"), and in these indurated 
layers, fossils are occasionally found. The Rev. H. H. Winwood 
has obtained Ammonites aalensis (identified by Mr. Etheridge), 
and several specimens of A. striatulus (identified by Mr. E. T. 
Newton) from micaceous and calcareous sandstone in the 
Lyncombe cutting. Mr. S. S. Buckman records from the same 
locality A. fallaciosus ; and from an oolitic bed at the base of the 
sands, A. striatulus and A. toarccnsis.\\ In the William-Smith 
* Proc. Cotteswold Club, vol. ii. p. 170. 
f TVwnsend's Character of Moses, p. 105. 
J Beport on the state of Bristol, Bath, &c. (Health of Towns Commission), 
1845, p. 37. 
See also J. Lean, Proc. Bristol Nat. Soc., ser. 2, rol, iii. p. 153. 
|| Inf. Ool. Ammonites, p. 165. 
