138 LOWEK OOLITIC BOOKS OF ENGLAND I 
Grit being represented by a 2-foot bed of coarse-grained oolite, 
full of broken shells, Echini, &c. Underlying this bed there 
is a layer of calcareous sandstone with Belemnites, also 2 feet 
thick, and about 4 feet of yellow sand.* 
The Inferior Oolite has been quarried in several places on 
Bredon Hill, and there are good exposures west of Overbury. 
As remarked by Prof. Hull, " Everywhere on the Bredon outlier 
the oolite is in a most disjointed state, showing apparent dips in 
all directions, and this not only along the skirts but in the very 
centre of the area/'t These appearances are partly due to the 
dissolution of calcareous matter from the calcareous sandstones, 
whereby the strata (like the "broken beds" of Purbeck) present 
-a, disturbed and shattered aspect to a depth of from 20 to nearly 
40 feet (see Fig. 134, p. 460). I am disposed, however, to think 
that the excessive weathering of the Inferior Oolite may belong 
to Glacial times, when some of the thick accumulations of rubble 
were formed along the slopes of the Cotteswold Hills. 
The beds are of the age of the Lower Freestone and underlying 
strata. The basement-beds consist according to Prof. Hull, of 
thick-bedded calcareous sandstone, highly ferruginous in character. 
Overlying these are the brown and more or less shelly oolites that 
are worked in the quarries. Some of the beds are largely made 
up of Crinoidal fragments. Fossils, however, are scarce, and 
those that do occur are poorly preserved. Among these Ammo- 
nites, Belemnites ellipticus, Hinnites abjectus, Pecten personatus, 
Trigonia, Terebratula plicata, T. perovalis, T. maxillata, and 
Polyzoa have heen recorded. % Prof. Judd notes the. occurrence 
of Rhynchonella cynocephala in the sandy and ferruginous rocks 
at the base of the series, and most of the species above mentioned, 
are recorded by him from these strata. He remarks that in an old 
pit opposite to Kemerton Castle House, we find the upper beds to 
be composed of white freestone, that pass down into a ferruginous 
rock of the most, variable character; sometimes consisting of loose 
brown sand, at other times of brown sand indurated by carbonate 
of lime into a hard rock, and again becoming oolitic and shelly. 
Certain beds consist of brown sandstone, including hard calcareous 
ramifying masses, which cause the whole to weather into blocks with 
very rough surfaces. Some of the layers have a curious vesicular 
structure, being made up of rounded fragments of white or pink 
oolitic limestone cemented together by crystallized carbonate of 
lime, the interstices being filled with brown sand. Occasionally 
the rock is traversed by bands of hydrated peroxide of iron, and 
in places these assume that cellular and concentric arrangement, 
due to weathering along the joint planes, which is so commonly 
presented by both the calcareous and arenaceous varieties of the 
* Hull, Geol. Cheltenham, p. 29. 
f Ibid., p. 40. 
J See Memoirs of H. E. Strickland, p. 82 ; H. B. Holl, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., 
vol. xix. p. 315 ; and Judd, Geol. Rutland, p. 15. 
