116 
THE CRETACEOUS ROCKS OF BRITAIN, 
east of Bookliam Farm, and (2) in the road cutting 300 yards south 
west of the farm. The latter is the most accessible, and shows : -- 
ft. 
Hard white and nodular chalk, with marly bands full of 
nodules (Melbourn Rock) ------ 6 
Rather hard, compact and homogeneous yellowish chalk - 2 
Belemnite Marl .—Soft grey argillaceous marl - - seen for 6 
The yellow chalk is nearly the beginning of the bed mentioned 
on p. 94 as coming in above the Belemnite Marls of this county. 
There is a fault through the marls here, so it is difficult to measure 
their thickness, but there seems more than 6 feet. The beds are 
dipping west at 5° or 6°. 
The same succession will be found in a lane half a mile north 
of Alton Pancras, but here the yellowish chalk is 3 feet thick. 
The next good exposure is in the long quarry on Giant’s Hill, 
near Cerne Abbas. Here below the Mel bourn Rock (see p. 115) 
and 41 feet of smooth yellowish-grey chalk, there is soft grey 
Marl, and at the southern end of the quarry about 5 feet of such 
grey marl were seen in 1893 overlying yellowish weathered chalk, 
which passed down into nearly white chalk; the latter contains 
Holaster trecensis, but no fossils could be found in the marl. 
Near Maiden Newton there are some very anomalous sections 
at this horizon. One of these, west of the town, has been already 
mentioned, where the beds above the 6 feet of grey marl seem to 
form a complete passage from Lower to Middle Chalk. 
A small pit by the roadside on the hill south of Tollerford shows 
about 8 feet of grey marl and marly chalk in lenticular layers over- 
lying firm-bedded white chalk containing Holaster trecensis . 
Another exposure at Shatcombe limekiln, about 24 miles south 
west of Maiden Newton, tallies well with those near Cerne, showing 
five feet of soft grey marl resting, as usual, on firm blocky whitish 
chalk. 
Between Maiden Newton and the termination of the chalk 
range near Cheddington only one exposure of the same horizon has 
been seen ; this is in a chalk-pit west of Beckham’s Coppice, near 
Corscombe, and the section here is : — 
ft 
Middle 
Chalk. 
Lower 
Chalk. 
( Hard white nodular chalk with Inoceramus mytiloides 
j and Rhynchonella Cuvieri {% Melbonrn Rock) 
j Smooth greyish-white streaky chalk, becoming soft and 
, marly below -------- 
(Grey marl with irregular beds of greyish blocky chalk, 
) weathering whiter, an irregular jointed mass of marl 
) and marly chalk (Belemnite Marl) - 
(Tough blocky massive grey chalk seen below. 
2;y 
4 
8 
There is no plane of division between any of the beds, but simply 
a rapid or sudden change from one to the other. The lowest part 
of the marly chalk contains a variety of Ostrea vesicularis common 
at this horizon in the Midland counties. The pit is so near the 
base of the chalk that the beds seen have probably slipped. 
