466 LOWER OOLITIC KOCK9 OF ENGLAND : 
Oolite is more marked, and it thus continues, broken only by the Mendip 
Hills, through Bath to the Cotteswold Hills, where it forms the principal 
escarpment. There are occasional sbee'p-sleights on the uplands of 
Dorsetshire and Somersetshire. 
The soil is reddish-brown loamy and brashy. It forms good corn- 
land, and roots and vegetables are cultivated in some places. Asa rule 
there is a considerable thickness of rubbly oolite beneath the soil. 
On the higher grounds, especially in the Cotteswold district, which was 
not enclosed until the 18th century, the land is largely laid out in more 
or less permanent pasture. Here, and further to the south-east, partly on 
the Inferior Oolite and partly on the Great Oolite Series of the Oxfordshire 
Downs, the famous Cotteswold sheep are bred. Turnips, vetches, clover, 
and sainfoin are cultivated as food for the stock. In this region we find 
also a good deal of arable land, while the steeper slopes of the combes are 
almost always under grass. 
The land is divided by dry-walls or stone-fences, there being few hedge- 
rows and few trees on the main platform formed by the dip-slope, except 
in certain situations on the margins of the escarpment, which are well- 
wooded. Here the beech more especially thrives as in the plantations 
known as Cranham Woods near Painswick, again near Duraley and 
Wotton-under-Edge. In the Stroud valley we find terraces on the sides 
of the hills; these were used as "racks" for drying cloths in olden 
times, and they resemble some of the lynchets. 
Between Chipping Norton and Banbury the soil in many places is very 
sandy and comparatively sterile, so that we find occasional furzy com- 
mons ; bvit the Oolitic tract generally is an undulating series of dome- 
shaped downs, chiefly devoted to agriculture. The fields are more 
frequently divided by hedgerows than is the case on the Oxfordshire 
Downs near Burford, as the soil is on the whole deeper. Where the soil 
is thin the hedgerows "wear away soon," and they are replaced by 
stone-fences. 
Passing to the north-east we come to a region where the characters of 
the country are more or less modified by coverings of Drift Gravel and 
Boulder Clay. On the whole however these superficial deposits more 
largely conceal the beds of the Great Oolite Series and higher divisions, 
than those of the Inferior Oolite Series. In some cases they extend to a 
thickness of over 200 feet. 
The Northampton Sand yields a variable soil but in the main a light 
one. Prof. Judd remarks that the soil is very rich, and especially adapted 
for the growth of spring-crops. It is ferruginous and often of a red 
colour. He remarks that the Lincolnshire Oolite forms a light and not 
very productive Boil, which is apt to be very treacherous in dry seasons ; 
it is usually of a red colour, owing to the comparative indestructibility of 
the thin band of ironstone which lies upon it.* 
Rutland owes its name to the "red land" which forms much of the 
Vale of Catmos. The term " creachy " or "creech land" is applied to 
the brown ironsione soil found in south-west Lincolnshire, both on the 
Northampton Sand and Middle Lias ; and also to the deep red brashy 
loam that occurs on the Lincolnshire Limestone from Lincoln to Aucaster 
and Honington.t (Sec also p. 468.) 
The outliers of Northampton Beds form flat-topped and often grassy 
hills in the country to the north-east of Banbury, near Daventry, and 
onwards to Maidwell ; and the same remarks apply to those, mentioned by 
Prof. Judd, at Whadborough, Eobin-a-Tiptoes, Barrow Hill, the high 
grounds about Uppingham, and the Neville-Holt, Slawston, Dingley 
and Brampton outliers. J 
Much of " Lincoln Heath," a tract on the Lincolnshire Limestone both 
north and south of Lincoln, was improved and enclosed at the end of last 
century. 
* Geol. Rutland, pp. 93, 141. 
t J- A. Clarke, Journ. E. Agric. Soc., vol. xii. p. 259 ; and H. B. W., Memoir 
on the Lias of England and Wales, p. 311. 
t Geol. Eutland, p. 264. 
