742 PE0F. J. BTJCKMAN ON THE MIDFOED SANDS. than the difference of the sands at Midford compared with the admitted oolites of Ham Hill and Doulting. If we look to the fossils of this part of our Oolite series we shall find the subject beset with many difficulties, the chief being that where the rock is hard, as at Ham Hill, it is absolutely made up of a mass of comminuted shells cemented by an oolitic matrix, so that great industry, patience, and knowledge of fossils is required to get them and to make them out. They are, however, both in texture and even in colour at Doulting, like the " shelly oolite " of Brodie, and certainly contain many of the fossils of that member of the Cotteswold series. Another difficulty as regards the making out of the fossils arises from the fact that as this sand bed has been correlated with Lias, so many of the shells are considered as indicating Lias. It is also true, as regards the Jurassic of the west, that several Lias forms do actually occur in the true Oolitic deposits, thus mounting higher than they do in the Cotteswolds ; on the other hand, what we have hitherto taken as positively indicative of high Oolitic rocks are found here in the sands, — facts which will be seen from the list we now append to this paper. The following, then, is offered as an imperfect list of the fossils from the sand (so-called Midford) of Dorset and Somerset ; it must, however, be understood that if they could, be made out there are probably very many more species than we have been enabled to determine. List of Fossils from the Sands of Dorset and their equivalents. Pentacrinus, ossicula of, frequent. Apiocrinus ParMnsoni, Brown and others. I have a series of ossicula from the sands, and also a body from the Dorset Ammonite-bed, Bradford Abbas. Echinoderms. Plates and spines of various species occur in the sands, also in the stones at Ham and Doulting. Serpula socialis occurs frequently on the surfaces of the blocks of oolite and on the harder beds which occur in the sand. Crustacea, claws and portions of. Pelemnites quadricanaliculatus, Quenstedt. tricanaliculatus, Quenstedt, probably the same species. These are common in the sand bank. 7 / • ' Occur on the blocks of stone occurring in the sands, Brad- subtenms, v ford Abbag _ compressus. J Nautilus intermedins, ") ■ latidorsatus, -r, , • -i .1 1 # A • .1 ■ , ' ]■ Barely m the blocks 01 stone in the sands. excavatus, J inornatus. J Ammonites jurensis. Common to the sands and the Ammonite-bed. Moorei, | Germaini, I From the sands at Coker. A. Moorei is common. Mgion. J Gasteropoda. So rare that we cannot be said to have made out a single species*.
- Since the above was written we have broken up a block of stone in the sand
at Bradford containing bits of at least two Ammonites and three species of Univalves.
