Page:Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, vol. 26.djvu/318

210 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [Jan. 12, sand I found a fragment of a shell which Mr. Etheridge considered to be a portion of a Cyprina islandica, remarking at the time that it was a very difficult piece to determine. At Brick Hill I have observed accretions of whitish sand in a bed of light-red loam ; and on Mount Pleasant the same kind of sand has been met with. It may be remarked here that the deposit on Cropthorne Heath, described above, is partially surrounded by beds of freshwater origin, between which there is a minimum difference of height of 30 feet.

H. About three years ago, during the construction of the Evesham and Ashchurch railway, a large excavation was made for ballast at the base of Bredon Hill, near Beckford, where the following section was exposed, for an account of which I am indebted to Mr. W. C. Lucy, F.G.S., of Gloucester.

No. 1. ft. in.

(1) Soil 3 0 (2) Gravel 9 0 (3) Seam of clay 0 2 (4) Gravel 0 3 (5) Discontinuous bed of clay 0 2 (6) Gravel 0 3 12 10

Basement bed of Lower Lias clay reached at 17 feet below the surface.

On visiting the locality I found that the former excavations had been filled in ; but near the north-east end of the old workings the following section was exposed in a sand-pit.

No. 2. Surface of ground. ft. in.

(1) Dark-brown earth without pebbles 3 3 (2) Bed of coarse fragments of Oolitic limestone ... 2 9

(3) Beds of small fragments of Oolitic rock, alternating with thin seams of light-coloured quartzose sand 7

Bottom of pit. 13

The beds nos. 2 and 3 contained Oolitic fossils, quartzose pebbles, and flints.

In a sand-pit at Bredon's Norton I counted as many as thirteen alternations of gravel, sand, and clay in a vertical depth of about 4-1/2 feet.

Judging from the depth of the basement clay in Section No. 1, it would appear that the total thickness of the deposit in the sand-pit at Beckford is about 20 feet. From the contour of the surface of the ground in the neighbourhood, it seems likely that the beds in question form mound-shaped accumulations, which slope upwards towards the summit of Bredon Hill, and extend round a considerable portion of its base.

In Mr. W. Boyd Dawkins's list of Postglacial Mammals (Quart.