FOREST MARBLE : NORTON BRTZE. 371 
Oyster-shells, which "form lenticular layers, in one instance, two 
feet in thickness, and extending several yards."* 
At Norton Pits, N.W. of Norton Brize, an excellent section of 
the Cornbrash and Forest Marble has been exposed, indeed the 
beds have been quarried for many a year, the foreman telling me 
lhat in his early days (about 1845) as many as 20 teams of horses 
had been employed in carting the stone. In this and other cases, 
the introduction of railways has largely modified the trade, and 
here the distance from the railway has led to a great decline in 
the work done. The section was as follows: 
Brown brash y clay 
{Tough rubbly rudely -bedded, pale 
earthy and shelly limestone : used 
for road-stone and burnt for lime 
("Irregular marly layer - - "I 
Grey clay with ferruginous > about 
seams - J 
Grey and buff shelly and oolitic 
limestone and close-giained gritty 
rocks :f false-bedded, very hard in 
places, and of irregular thickness : 
divided as follows : 
Forest Marble - 
Slatt 
Strong lime 
Planking vein - 
Soft bed - 
Freestone - >12 to 14 
Good weatherstone 
Building-stone - 
Paving (ripple-marked 
-J 
About 6 feet more of rock occurs below, but cannot be worked 
on account of water. Lignite is met with in the lower beds of the 
"Forest Marble. In the Cornbrash I obtained Waldheimia obovata, 
Terebratula intermedia, Homomya, and Avicula echinata. 
I found an indication of the Bradford Clay, in a pit to the 
south-west of Shilton, where the following section was exposed : 
FT. IN. 
(" Brown clay - - 6 in. to about 3 
Forest Marble - < False-bedded, buff and gre}', shelly 
I oolitic limestones - - 3 to 4 
("Pale marly bed (inconstant): Wald- 
Bradford Clay-j heimia cligona (abundant), Rhyncho- 
L nella .... about 2 
Great Oolit I False-bedded marly, shelly, and oolitic 
" 1 limestone - about 3 
To the east of Shilton a quarry showed the Great Oolite, 
overlaid by a bed of grey clay about 6 feet thick, with sandy 
layers at its base. It yielded Ostrea but no other fossils. 
The junction of the Forest Marble with the Cornbrash was 
shown in the "Quarry ground'' west of Rock Farm, south of 
* Geol. Cheltenham, pp. 70, 72. 
f A moag specimens from the Roma a village at Silchester, some tesserae were 
formed of rock very like the gritty stone of Norton 15rizo. 
A A 2 
