872 LOWER OOLITIC ROCKS OF ENGLAND :. 
Shilton. Here there was no evidence of the hard grJtty rocks 
seen at Norton Brize. The top bed of the Forest Marble 
consisted of clay, 1 ft. 8 in. thick, and beneath there were exposed 
about 17 feet of pale grey oolitic limestones an<! marly clays. 
Wychwood Forest to Witney and Woodstock. 
In the region of Wychwood Forest, whence the Forest Marble 
derives its name, we find few open quarries, and none of nny 
magnitude. The beds here occur in outlying masses separated 
from the main outcrop. 
Near White Oak Green to the north-west of Hailer, there are 
sections showing the lower beds, as follows : 
FT. IN. 
f Grey clays with " race" and beds of 
Forest Marble -\ flaggy shelly and oolitic limestone:. 
I Ostrea - 5 to 6 
(Hard brown oolite - - 1 
False-bedded oolitic and shelly > about 20 
limestones - - J 
The lower beds were grouped with the Forest Marble by Prof. 
Hull,* and a similar grouping was adopted in reference to 
sections near Witney, that were noted by W. S Horton. Horton 
recorded the occurrence of Rliynchonclla concinna, Terebratula 
maxillata, Waldheimia digona, spines of Cidaris, &c. ; an 
assemblage that indicates the Bradford Clay. He states that 
the clay is divided by a thin band of slaty sandstone, which is 
capable of being dressed into a rough kind of roofing-tile. t 
The record of a well-boring at the Police-station, Witney 
(1892), communicated to me by Messrs. Le Grand and Sutcliff, 
gives the following sequence J: 
FT. IN. 
Top soil - .40 
Cornbrash 
f Blue clay- 
Forest Marble - < Forest Marble 
I Dark clay and sand 
f Grey earthy limestone 
fireat Oolite - < oolitt / 
10 
8 
23 
3 6 
7 6 
4 
60 
To the north-east of Witney the outcrop of the Forest Marble 
is confined within comparatively narrow limits, although occasional 
outliers are found, as in Blenheim Park. Sections have been 
exposed near Handborough station and at Bladon, and they show 
that the Forest Marble has undergone great attenuation : this is 
* Geol. Woodstock, p. 23. 
f Geologist, vol. iii. p. 252. 
J The record of another boring at Witney, carried through alternations of rock 
snd clay to a depth of 270 feet, has been communicated to me hy Mr. J. H. Blake. I 
leave the publication of this for the volume on the Middle and Upper Oolitic rocks, 
as the record is difficult to interpret, and it may then be compared with the Wytham 
boring. 
