James Buckman

“ That they do so harmonize we are strongly inclined to believe from D'Orbigny's drawings of Cephalopoda, as in Dorset we have not only a large number of species referred for the first time to our home rocks, but they are for the most part in a fine state of preservation—so much so, that the terminations of the Ammonites have in many cases been clearly made out. ”

“ Now this list of fossils is sufficient to mark the oolitic nature of these thick beds below the Cephalopoda-bed of Dorset; and if this new reading of the matter be correct, our sands are not the equivalents of the Gloucester sands, or rather the Cotteswold sands, but the representatives of the lower beds of the Inferior Oolite, which at Ham Hill is a good freestone, from containing so much lime, while at Bradford it is hard, in bands consisting of a shelly oolite, with thick beds of sand between, not sufficiently indurated to be used as stone. ”

“ Fig. 2.—Comparative Sections of Beds at Ham Hill and Babylon Hill.
Ham Hill has always been a puzzle to the geologist; but if we place it on the same horizon as the so-called "Lias Sands" at Bradford, the difficulty is at once cleared up. ”

“ The best Gloucestershire equivalent of this bed is to be seen in the straight wall of rock at Crickley Hill, which latter section we consider the equivalent of the freestone-beds at Ham Hill, and the sands with shelly oolite interpolated in slabs at Bradford Abbas, Babylon Hill, and the adjacent district. ”

“ How far the term Cephalopoda-bed for the fossiliferous portion of this section may be justified will at once be seen from the following list of the family of fossils after which it has been named, the whole of which have been found at Bradford Abbas, or the equivalent bed near Sherborne. ”

“ The Conchifera afford a list for our limited area as large as is to be met with in the whole of the Cotteswolds, numbering over 150 species. Amongst them the following genera—Trigonia, Lima, Pecten, Cucullæa, Modiola, Perna, Cardium, Astarte, and others, present a most interesting assemblage of forms. ”

“ In the Bradford-Abbas quarry alone have been found as many as fifty species of univalves, many of which belong to the Cotteswolds [8] . There is, however, a large array of new forms in the genera Pleurotomaria, Chemnitzia, Turbo, Trochus, Natica and Solarium; and others abound.
These, like the Ammonites, are in a wonderful state of preservation.
The Brachiopoda are not so numerous as in the Cotteswold district; still the forms met with in the Cephalopoda-bed point also to the high position it occupies in the Inferior Oolite; such are
And others abound. ”

“ Sands and bands of Oolitic rock at Bradford, building-stones at Ham Hill. a. Position of Cephalopoda-bed of Gloucestershire. 3. Upper Lias. ⁠ 4. Lias Marls.
At Ham Hill the equivalent of the sand-bed at Babylon Hill is a reddish brown freestone, apparently made up of comminuted shells. At Babylon Hill the brown sandy beds present occasional courses of comminuted shelly oolites.
The two sections here placed in juxtaposition (fig. 2) are remarkable for their dissimilarity at first sight ”