Lower chalk—somerset and devon. 
i2i 
The white chalk here is not clearly bedded, but jointed, and 
falls into angular blocks ; concretions of white siliceous chalk, 
some of them with nuclei of black flint, are not uncommon, but have 
to be looked for in the talus, as they are difficult to see in the pit- 
face. Of this chalk from 25 to 30 feet are seen, and it dips below 
greyish-buff marl and marly chalk, of which about 12 feet were 
visible in 1892. There is a fairly marked plane of division between 
them, though in places the one seems to pass rapidly into the other. 
The marl is mostly soft and loose, but it includes lenticular layers 
of tough, buff-coloured marly chalk. In one spot a mass of grey 
sandy-feeling chalk was seen in this marl, about 3 feet thick, 
and resembling soft Totternhoe Stone. The lens showed this to be 
full of Foraminifera, but no other fossils were found. 
The Greensand crops out a short distance west of this quarry, 
but there were no signs of the base of the Chalk, and the line of 
junction may be a fault. 
Membury. 
There are several quarries in the Membury outlier, and as the 
Middle Chalk comes in as well as the Lower, the localitv is an interest- 
ing one. The numerous faults make it difficult to estimate thick¬ 
nesses, but that of the Lower Chalk was judged to be about 50 or 
GO feet. At the time of my visit in 1892 the church was being 
restored, and the chalk thrown out from the foundations was a 
peculiar soft grey granular chalk. This is about 50 feet below the 
level of an exposure of Melbourn Rock in the lane to the west. 
North of the village there is a series of old chalk quarries; the 
first of these by the lane leading to Furley is in Middle Chalk, but 
all the others appear to be in Lower Chalk, and one of them 
showed the following beds in descending order, below the hedge 
on the north side : — 
ft. 
Hard rough lumpy chalk -------- H5 
Blocky chalk ---------- 4 
Bank with rough lumpy chalk exposed at intervals - about 12 
Softer chalk with a layer of rough lumpy chalk 4 
White chalk, rather hard, weathering into small brick-shaped 
pieces - -- -- -- -- -- 3 
Another pit to the north-west, and nearer Furley, seems to con¬ 
tinue the descending section thus : — 
ft. 
White chalk, weathering into brick-shaped pieces 8 
Greyish-bedded chalk, soft and silty, with irregular layers of 
hard lumpy chalk at intervals of 12 to 18 inches - - - 12 
The floor of this pit is only a few feet above the base of the Chalk, 
for glauconitic chalk was seen at the entrance gate. 
