350 LOWER OOLITIC ROCKS OF ENGLAND : 
not so largely worked as was the case 40 and more years ago, 
and we have to rely on fewer sections to build up our sequence. 
The lowest beds are rarely exposed, but clays with Waldheimia 
digona were proved in the Coal-boring south-west of Buckland 
Denham and north of Barrow Hill. In quarries in this neigh- 
bourhood we may see flaggy calcareous sandstones with ochreous 
clayey galls, separated by beds of laminated clay and sand. Slabs 
of the rock show ripple-marks and tracks of invertebrate animals. 
These beds were exposed to a depth of 10 feer, in a quarry one 
mile southwest of Buckland Denham ; and they occur above 
layers of thin shelly and oolitic limestone, that were exposed in a 
deep lane north of the village. Lonsdale placed these sandy beds 
in the lowest part of the Forest Marble, but they appear to me 
to be approximately on the horizon of the Hinton Sandstone. 
Shells have been noticed in the sands of this neighbourhood.* 
Two shafts were sunk near Buckland Denham about a mile 
apart, by Mr. James Oxley of Frome. After passing through the 
Bradford Clay, Fuller's Earth Series, and Inferior Oolite (of 
which no details are preserved), the Lias was reached at depths 
of 160 to 240 feet, and from 60 to 80 feet of Lower Lias, &c. was 
penetrated before the Rha3tic Beds were touched.f 
Old quarries along the scarp by Kingsdown north of Mells, 
indicate about 10 feet of good stone ; shelly oolitic limestone, 
capped by 2 feet of rubbly beds. On the exposed faces of the 
stone the beds have become much decomposed. 
Further north, near Ammerdown Cottages, we find about _6 
feet of fissile false-bedded shelly, oolitic, and sandy limestones, 
alternating with yellow sands. Again to the north-west of King- 
lands Farm, between Kilmersdon and Faulkland, a large pit had 
been excavated to a depth of about 40 feet, through false-bedded 
flaggy limestone with clay bands, into a series of hard stone beds 
alternating with sands. These beds yield few fossils, but Ostrea 
Sowerbyi, Tercbratula maxillata (occasionally), RhynclLonella, and 
a good deal of lignite may be obtained. In this region the 
shelly and oolitic limestones appear to blend with sandy strata, 
the latter becoming more distinct and the former less pro- 
minent, between Norton St. Philip and Charterhouse Hinton. 
That the more sandy strata occur above the mass of the shelly 
and oolitic limestones, is indicated by a pit between Cock road and 
Port way, to the south-west of Laverton. Nearer to Laverton a 
quarry showed 8 feet of strata, comprising alternations of shelly 
and oolitic limestone and shelly and sandy limestone, with buff 
sands streaked with clay. 
To the south-east of Hinton Field Farm, south of Charterhouse 
Hinton, there is a pit to which I was conducted in 1886 by the 
Rev. H. H. Winwood. The following beds were exposed: 
* A. C. Crutwell, Geology of Frome, 4to Frome, 1881, p. 16. 
t Ibid., p. 14, and Geol. Mag. 1874, p. 96. 
