96 LOWER OOLITIC ROCKS OF ENGLAND : 
Collection at the British Museum, there is a specimen from the 
Coal-canal near Midford, identified by Mr. Etheridge and Mr. R. 
B. Newton as very near to A. Levesquei, a species found in the 
Cephalopoda-bed of the Cotteswold Hills. More recently 
Mr. Win wood has obtained from Weston, near Bath, specimens 
of Ammonites radians and Lima toarcensis* 
Mr. Hudleston, remarking on the apparent absence of the 
Lower Division of the Inferior Oolite (zone of Ammonites Mur- 
chisonce), has suggested that it might be represented by the upper 
portion of the Midford Sands, t No evidence has at present been 
obtained to countenance this view. In tracing the beds north- 
wards from Dorsetshire we find the Lower Division very indis- 
tinctly represented in many places : the beds are well shown 
at Dun dry Hill, and where they do develop further north in 
the Cotteswold Hills, they are largely represented by false- 
bedded oolitic freestone?. The stratigraphical evidence is there- 
fore in favour of the Midford Sands belonging to the same set of 
beds as the ^eovil and Bridport Sands in the one direction, and the 
Cotteswold Sands with the Gloucestershire Cephalopoda-bed in 
the other. If the Midford Sands have at present proved some- 
what unprolific, there is no reason why they should remain so, for 
fossils are preserved only here and there : in some localities as 
near Beatninster and Crewkerne abundantly, while near at hand 
the beds appear quite barren. 
The section south of Midford Station is as follows : 
FT. IN. 
Puller's Earth. 
Pale fine-grained oolite with, occasional 
casts of shells - - about 24 
Bubbly beds of oolitic limestone with 
bands of Coral-rock and seams of 
clay : Isastroea, Pleurotomaria, Tro- 
chotoma, Trigonia (cast) , Sponges ? - 8 
Inferior Oolite < 
Iron-shot limestones, nodular and con- 
Midford Sands -| 
glomeratic at the base: Ammonites 
Parkinsoni, Pleurotomaria, Cucullcea 
cancellata, Lima pectiniformis, 
Modiola, Myacites jurassi, Ostrei 
costata, Pholadomya, Trichites, Trigo- 
nia, Rhynchonella obsoleta, R. spinosa, 
Terebratula globata, T. sphceroidalis - 
Sands with indurated bands and 
nodules of calcareous sandstone. 
The sequence is similar to that noticed by Lonsdale,J who 
assigned a thickness of 40 or 50 fet to the "soft freestone 5 ' on top. 
He observed the Coral-bed beneath ; and hard brown limestone 
at the base, abounding with fossils. The lowest bed he said was 
provincially called the " hollow-bed " as it contains hollow moulds 
and casts of Trigonia and other fossil?. A bed of this character 
* H. B. W., GeoL Mag., 1888, p. 470 ; Proc. Bath Nat. Hist. Club, vol.iii. p. 134 ; 
Geol. E. Somerset, p. 119 ; and Winwood, Proc. Bath Nat. Hist. Club, vol. vii. p. 338. 
t Gasteropoda of Inferior Oolite, pp. 55, 66 ; see also J. Buckman, Quart. Journ. 
Geol. Soc., vol. xxxv. p. 737 ; vol. xxxiii. p. 1. 
J Trans. Geol. Soc., ser. 2, vol. iii. p. 248. 
