FOREST MARBLE: BICESTER. 377 
Numerous fossils were collected many years ago by Mr. J. F. 
Whiteaves, from the Forest Marble at Islip and Kidlington.* 
Many of the specimens are now in the Oxford Museum : they 
include, from Islip, Avicula costata, Corbula islipensis, Modiola 
imbricata, Terebratula maxillata, Terebellaria ramosissima, and 
Cidaris bradfordcnsis, forms altogether indicative of the Bradford 
Clay, as suggested by Lycctt. 
The limestone at the base is probably the same as that exposed 
near the Handborough railway-station. Another section north of 
Islip, showing about 5 feet of Forest Marble Avas noted by Mr. 
W. Whitaker.t 
FIG. 109. 
Section at the Brickyard, Blackthorn Hill, south-east of Bicester 
'(Prof. A. H. Green.) 
FT. IN. 
4. Cornbrash 4 
Nodular white marly limestone - l) 9 
Forest Marble. { 2. Light-blue laminated clay - 7 
Blue flaggy Forest Marble - 4 
Fault. 
t. i_/u. 
(3. No 
2. Li 
1. Bh 
Other sections of Forest Marble have been exposed in the low 
ridges of Oddington and Oharlton, north-east of Islip, where the 
thickness of the beds is from 3 to 7 feet.J 
Occasionally we find a bed of flaggy oolitic limestone, as at 
Oddington, at the top of the Forest Marble : but near Bicester 
the upper beds comprise pale greenish-grey clays, that may be 
compared with the Great Oolite Clay of districts to the north- 
ea?t. 
Excavations at the Brickyard on Blackthorn Hill, south-east of 
Bicester, exposed some good sections of the Forest Marble ; and 
these are described in the Chapter dealing with the Cornbrash 
(p. 448). It is interesting to note that fossils suggestive of the 
Bradford Clay occur here, as at Islip. 
A boring (at Mr. W. Baker's) at Bicester, made in 1889 by 
Messrs. Le Grand and Sutcliff, commenced at the bottom of an old 
dug well, 21 feet deep (Cornbrash and Forest Marble), and passed 
* Rep. Brit. Assoc. for 1860, p. 106 ; Green, Geology of Banbury, p. 29 j Lycett, 
Supp. to Great Oolite Mollusca, p. 64 ; and Phillips, Geol. Oxford, p. 153. 
f Green, Geology of Banbury, p. 35 ; and Hull, Explan. of Hor. Sections, Sheets 
71 and 72 (Geol. Survey), p. 3. 
$ Green, Geology of Banbury, p. 36. 
