360 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [Mar. 9,
Area I. Kingsthorpe.
This area lies immediately north of Northampton. Its north-western portion consists of high ground capped with the White Limestone of the Great Oolite (A) overlain by a thin covering of older Post-Glacial or Glacial Gravel. This limestone is disposed in horizontal strata, and occupies an area of elongated irregular form, extending for about two miles, in a south-easterly direction nearly to Weston Favel, with an average width of about half a mile.
North of a road running easterly towards Moulton are large pits in this limestone (marked a on the map), presenting a section of about 25 feet. At the third of a mile south-east of these is another pit (b), the section of which, partly by the thinning of the limestone, and partly from denudation, has diminished to about 16 feet ; and at the further distance of a mile in the same direction (near Buttock's Booth) is a third pit (c), in which the section is only about five feet.
The section of the pits marked a is as follows.
Section of Great Oolite Limestone at Kingsthorpe — giving Quarrymen's Terms.
ft. in. ft. in.
1. Soft marly bed, with fragmentary masses of limestone, and fossils — Gryphoea, Modiola, &c nil to 4 0
2. Marly limestone, sometimes soft, occasionally hard — a few fossils 2 0 to 3 0
3. " Dirt Bed " — earthy shale bed, in thin layers, containing flattened bivalves, the tests preserved 1 0 to 1 6
4. "Top Soft Bed" — soft, marly limestone, containing large Pholadomyoe, Homomya, Myacites, Ostrea subrugulosa, Natica, Clypeus, &c 1 0 to 1 6
5. "Pendle" — two marly limestone beds, each from 12 to 18 inches in thickness, the upper softer and more fossiliferous than the lower 2 0 to 3 0
6. Cream-coloured soft clay-like seam, with fossils 3 to 6
7. "Paving" — upper bed — hard, sometimes crystalline limestone, occasionally with blue heart, very full of fossils — Alaria, Nerinoea, Astarte elegans, Trigonia, Acrosalenia, Clypeus, palatal teeth of fish, &c 2 0 to 2 6
8. " Paving " — lower bed — similar to the last, but not so fossiliferous 2 0 to 2 3
The "Paving"-beds stone is sawn up and faced, for floors, steps, window-sills, chimney-pieces, &c.
9. " Top Jubs " — soft marly stone, full of Pholadomya, Modiola, Natica, large Nautilus, large Clypeus, &c, with a zone at bottom, softer, but containing the same fossils 2 6 to 3 0
10. "Bottom Jubs" — stone similar to the last, but softer 2 0 to 2 6
11. Lower zone of the " Bottom Jubs "—more compact limestone, rather coarsely oolitic in places, containing, among other fossils, Nautilus Baberi, N. subtruncatus, and numerous Ostrea Sowerbyi, the tests of which are perfect in the soft material of the bedding 1 0 to 1 3
12. " Bottom Soft Bed" — soft marly bed, with numerous Rhynchonella concinna, Modiola imbricata, &c 1 0 to 1 6
The last bed is not well seen in the pits a.
