BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME FROM THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF Henrg M. Sage 1891 ^••30090^. ajM\1g, The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/cletails/cu31924004550046 MEMOIRS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY. ENGLAND AND WALES. EXPLANATION OF SHEET 267. THE GEOLOGY OF THE COUNTRY AROUND HUNGERFORD AND NEWBURY. BY H. J. OSBORNE WHITE, F.G.S. FUBUSHED BT OBSBB OF IHB I,OBI>S OOMmSSIONERS 07 HI3 MAJESIY'3 IBBASUBT, LONDON: PRINTED FOE HIS MAJESTY'S STATIONERY OFFICE, By WYMAN & SONS, LiMiTBD, Fettee Lane, E.G. And to be purchased from E. STANFORD, 12, 13, and 14, Long Acre, London ; JOHN MENZIES & Co., Rose Street, Edinburgh; HODGES, FIGGIS & Co., Grafton Street, Dublin ; From any Agent for the sale of Ordnance Survey Maps ; or through any Bookseller from the Ordnance Survey Office, Southampton. 1907. Price Two Shillings and Sixpence. LIST OF MAPS, SECTIONS, AND MEMOIRS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF ENGLAND AND WALES, AND MUSEUM OF PRACTICAL GEOLOGY. J. J. H. Teall, M.A., D.Sc, F.R.S., Director of the Geological Survey and Museikm, Jermyn Street, London, S.W. The Maps and Memoirs are now issued by the Ordnance Survey. They can be obtained from Agents or direct from the Ordnance Survey Office, Southampton. Museum Catalogues, Guides, &c., are sold at the Museum, 28, Jermyn Street, London. A Complete List of the Publications can be obtained from the Ordnance Survey Office, Southampton. Price 6d. INDEX HAF (25 miles to the incli). Map of the British Islands. Price— Coloured, 2s. ; Uncolourid, 1«. GEITEBAL MAP (pne inch to 4 miles). ENGLAND AND WALES.— Sheet 1 (Title); 2 (Northumberland, Ac.) ; 3 (Index of Colours) ; 4 (I. of Man) ; 5 (Lake District); 6 (B. Yorkshire) ; 7 (North Wales); 8 (Central England); 9 (Eastern Cottfaties); 10 (South Wales and N. Devon) ; 11 (W. of England and S.E. 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SIDMO0TH AND LYME REGIS (Colour printed) .. DORC BTESTER (Colour printed) BOURNEMOUTH, WlMBORNE, (Drift, Colour printed) Parts of NEW FOREST and part of ISLE OF WIGHT (Drift, Colour printed) PORTSMOUTH and part of ISLE OF WIGHT (Drift, Colour printed) .. ISLE OP WIGHT in one Sheet (Colour printed) 332. BOGNOR, (6c. (Colour printed)" 333. WORTHING, ROTIINGDEAN 334. NEWHAVEN, EASTBOURNE (Colour printed) . 339. NEWTON ABBOT .. ., ~ 341. WEST FLEET (Colour printed) ". 342. PORTLAND, WEYMOUTH, WORTH (Colour printed) . . 343. SWANAGE, CORFB CASTLE .. 346. NEWQUAY (Colour printed) .. 349. PLYMOUTH and IVYBRIDGE 360. TORQUAY 861 & 368. LAND'S END DISTRICT 352. FALMOUTH and TEUEO printed) ,. 356. KINGSBRIDGE 356. START POINT 357 & 360. ISLES s. d. — 16 — 16 — 18 — 3 — 16 — 16 3 16 1 G 1 6 LUL- (Colour — 16 — 8 OF SCILLY (Colour — 16 printed) MAPS (six-inch). The Coalfields and other mineral districts of the N of TSncjionH /n,= isr ot ,■ Leicestershire and Derbyshire, are in part Published on ascalfffs°x Ses' to a mll^^'^^^^^^ Coalfields, and fiix-moh maps, not mtended for publication,'^are deposited for referlnce in the GpnSjJ^'.i ^^- *'°'°"™* Copies of other London, and copies can be supplied at the'cost of drawing a^dcolSg the same ^ ^""'^ Office, Jermyn Street. HOBIZONTAL SECTIONS. VERTICAL SECTIONS. 1 to 140, 146 to 148, price 6s. each. 1 to 86, price Ss. ed. each. MEMOIRS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY. ENGLAND AND WALES. EXPLANATION OF SHEET 267. THE GEOLOGY OF THE COUNTRY AROUND HUNGERFOUD AND NEWBURY. BY H. J. OSBORNE WHITE, F.G.S. PUBLISBEU BV ORDER OF THE LORDS OOMMISSIONEES OE HIS MAJESTY'S TREASURY. LONDON: PRINTED FOE HIS MAJESTY'S STATIONERY OFFICE, By WYMAN & SONS, Limited, Fetter Lane, E.G. And to be purchased from E. STANFOKD, 12, 13, and 14, Long Acee, London ; JOHN MENZIES & Co., Eose Steekt, Edinburgh; HODGES, FIGGIS & Co., Grafton Street, Dublin ; From any Agent for the sale of Ordnance Survey Maps ; or through any Bookseller from the Ordnance Survey Office, Southampton. 1907. Price Two Shillivgs and Sixpence. e.v. 1^.3 70^ NOTE. The following is a list of the six-inch geological maps included in the area, iand of which MS. coloured copies are deposited for public reference in the Library of the Museum of Practical Geology : — Wiltshire 16 S.E. (with Barks 18) 23 N.E. and S.E. 29 N.E. and S.E. 36 N.E. and S.E. Berkshire 19 S.W. and S.E. 20 S.W. and S.E. 21 S.W. 25 (with Wiltshire 24) 26 27 N.W. and S.W. 33 (with Wiltshire 30) 34 35 N.W. and S.W. 41 (with Hants 1) 42 (with Hants 2) 43 N W. and S.W. (with Hants 3) Russley Park, 1893. Aldbourne, 1891. Axford, 1893. Savernake, 1892. Upper Lambovun, 1890. Eawley, 1888. E. & W. Ilsley, 1887. Lambourn, 1890. West Shefiord, 1888. Beedon, 1887. Hungerford, 1889. Boxford, 1886. N. Newbury, 1886. Inkpen, 1891. Enborne, 1889. S. Newbury, 1888. Ill PEEFACE, The Geology of the area included in the New Series map of Hungerford and Newbury (Sheet 267) was originally surveyed on parts of the Old Series one-inch maps (Sheets 12, 13, 14 and 34) during the years 1857-60, by W. T. Aveline, H. W. Bristow, W. Whitaker and R. Trench. With the exception of Sheet 14, the older geological maps were accompanied by descriptive Memoirs, and the district was further dealt with in detail by Mr. Whitaker in his "Geology of the London Basin" (1872). The area of the new map, which shows, for the first time, the full extent of the Drift deposits, was surveyed on the six-inch scale by Mr. F. J. Bennett (1886-1893), and some portions of the Cretaceous area have since been described by Mr. Jukes-Browne in his " Memoir on the Cretaceous Rocks of Britain " (1900-04). The section printed at the foot of the map was drawn up under the superintendence of Mr. Clement Reid. For some years Mr. Osborne White has been studying in more detail than was practicable in the course of the field- survey, the various formations represented in the area now described. He has thereby added much to our knowledge of the sub-divisions of the Chalk and its fossils, and of the nature of the unconformity between that formation and the overlyini Eocene deposits. He has further investigated the superficia. strata and their bearing on the history of river development. It is therefore a most fortunate circumstance that we have been able to secure his services in the preparation of this Memoir. Mr. Bennett's field maps and notes were placed in his hands, and due acknowledgment of information gathered from them has been made in the text. Dr. W. Pollard and Mr. H. H. Thomas have investigated the insoluble matter in samples of the Upper Chalk ; and Dr. F. L. Kitchin has revised the nomenclature in the lists of fossils. We are indebted to Mr. A. S. Kennard and Mr. B. B. Woodward for an authoritative list of the Mollusca from the Alluvium of the Kennet. The author desires also to acknowledge assistance received from Mr. Llewellyn Treacher, Mr. A. J. Jukes-Browne, Dr. A. W. Rowe, Mr. Frank Comyns (Honorary Curator of the Cloth Hall Museum, Newbury), Miss Muriel Baylis (of Wj'field), and Mr. H. E. Phillips (of Kintbury.) J. J. H. TEALL, Director. Geological Sv/rvey Office, 28, Jevmyn Street, London, June 20th, 1907. 9114. 500.— Wt. 32128. 8/07. Wy. & S. 4675r. A IV CONTENTS. PAGE Preface by tli.e Dibbotor - - - "* Chapter I. — Introduction Chapter II.— Upper Cretaceous. Upper Greensand . - - 5 Chapter III.— Upper Cretaceous. Lower and Middle Chalk - 10 Chapter IV.— Upper Cretaceous. Upper Chalk - 17 Chapter V.— Upper Cretaceous. Upper Chalk {continued) 29 Chapter VI.— Structural Relations of Chalk and Eocene Beds 43 Chapter VII. — Eocene. Reading Beds - - 4^ Chapter VIII.— Eocene. London Clay - 65 Chapter IX.— Eocene. Lower Bagshot Beds - 71 Chapter X.— Post -Bagshot Disturbances : Drainage Features 76 Chapter XL— Drift. Clay-with-Flints - 81 Chapter XII. — Drift. Plateau Gravel - - - 85 Chapter XIIL— Drift. Valley Gravel - 96 Chapter XIV. — Drift. Alluvium 107 Chapter XV. — Economic Geology 115 Appendices A. — Three of the Deeper Well Sections - - 122 B. — Recent or Holocene Mollusca of the Kennet Alluvium, by Messrs. A. S. Kbnnabd and B. B. Woodward - 12& C. — Insoluble Residue in Chalk, by Dr. W. Pollard and Mr. H. H. Thomas - 128 D. — Bibliography. List of Principal Works on the Geology of the District - - 132 Index - ... 136 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Fig. 1. Sections of the railway cuttings north of Grafton, Wiltshire 7 „ 2. Section of the railway cutting at Dods Down, Wiltshire - 14 „ 3. Section of vlcJ. jitadratos-chalkat Layland's Green, Kintbury 40 „ 4. Sketch-map of the Hungerford District, showing the uncon- formity between the Chalk and the Eocene, and the contours of the base of the Reading Beds - 44 „ 5. Junction of London Clay and Reading Beds, Kintbury 6© 6. Section through the Upper Greensand Inlier of the Vale of Ham 61 „ 7. Junction of London Clay and Reading Beds near Skinner's- Green, Berkshire - 67 8. Diagram showing relation of the slope of the Kennet Valley to that of the plateaux to the south 89 , 9. Generalized section and view of the Vale of the Kennet, near Newbuiy - - . gg „ 10. Section in Northbrook Street, Newbury - - log GEOLOGY OF THE COUNTRY AROUND HUNGERFORD AND NEWBURY. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION. Sheet 267 of the one-inch Geological Survey Map represents an area of 216 square miles, of which about three-fifths, situated on the north-east, belong to Berkshire, and the greater part of the remainder, on the west and south-west, to Wiltshire ; only a narrow strip on the south and south-east falling within the Hampshire boundary. The district, which includes the towns of Newbury, Hungerford, and Lambourn, together with Thatcham, Kintbury, the ancient See of Ramsbury, the old borough of Great Bedwyn, and other villages, is essentially an agricultural one, with well-tilled slopes and bottom-land, and extensive pasturage on the higher ground. Within it there may be distinguished three fairly well-marked physiographical belts, extending nearly east and west, and coinciding with (1) the Chalk uplands of the Berkshire Downs, on the north, (2) the similar uplands of the Sydmonton and Inkpen Hills, on the south, and (3) the intervening lower ground, sometimes called the " Vale of the Kennet." (1.) That portion of the Berkshire Downs (including the Wood- lands) with which this Memoir is concerned forms a broad-backed eminence, between 400 and 800 feet above the sea-level, rising north and north-westwards to the boundary of the district in those directions, and deeply dissected by the transverse valleys of the Aldbourne, of Radley Bottom, the Lambourn, and the Pang, with their numerous branches and subsidiarycombes. Around Aldbourne, on the north-west, the Downs have a notably worn and rounded aspect ; the valleys are wide and of mature form, and the heads of their lateral combes frequently meet and intersect in the narrow crests of the intervening ridges. Save for scattered plantations, and for the clumps of trees which mark the sites of farmsteads, the country hereabouts is open and largely cultivated. Nearer Lambourn, much of the land is under grass, and the fine sweeps of turfed slope to the north and west of that town have a more than local celebrity as training-grounds for race-horses. The population is small, and the villages — with the notable exception 9114. B INTEODUCTION. of high-perched Baydon— are confined to the two watered vaUeys of the Lambourn and the Aldbourne. Eastwards, the valleys contract, and the high ground between them, bearing rather broad spaces as yet scarcely reached by their encroaching branches, assumes a more even character. These flatter ridges are largely tilled, though their higher side-slopes support a number of small beech woods and copses. About Leck- hampstead and Peasemore the country has a more subdued relief ; but near Compton, at the north-eastern corner of the district, there is an approach to the bolder sort of topography seen on the north-west. Here villages are more numerous and occur as frequently on the spurs and broad ridge's as in the valleys. The lower boundary of the northern upland tract coincides with the edge of the Kennet Valley between Axford and Hungerford : it is less clearly defined farther eastward, where the wooded or heath- covered sand and clay hills of Wickham, Snelsmore, and Oare rise sharply above their platform of chalk. The natural drainage of this part of the Hungerford district is south-eastward, with the prevailing slope of the ground; the principal stream being the Lambourn, which rises (in years of normal rainfall) at or near Lambourn, and pursues a fairly straight course of some 14 miles down to its junction with the Kennet, below Newbury. The only other brooks of any importance are the Aldbourne, the Winterbourne (a tributary of the Lambourn), and the Pang, which enters and quits the district on the extreme north-east. (2.) The section of the Sydmonton Eange constituting the southern upland belt occupies a much smaller proportion of the area under notice than the Berkshire Downs. Its greater altitude, however, and, especially, the boldly-undulate sky-line and strong northward-facing scarp which characterise its eastern end, make it a more striking feature to the observer who is situated in the midst of the district. Upon entering the district from the south-east, near West Woodhay, the range bifurcates. The more commanding southern branch, i.e., the main mass of the upland — of which only a small portion of the crest and infacing slope is shown on Sheet 267 — comprises some of the highest Chalk ground in the kingdom. The culminating point of the range * (975 feet above Ordnance Datum) lies just within the adjoining Andover district (Sheet 283), in Walbury Camp, but the steep-side^d ridge of Coombe gibbet, and the broader summit of Inkpen Hill connected therewith, attain a positive elevation of 900 to 960 feet, and a local relief one-half to two-thirds as great. Farther west, the crest-line loses in height, and passes out of the Hungerford area at Ham Hill. The northern branch, commencing in a low, dis- continuous, mound-like feature on the flank of the southern, rises * Sometimes called " Inkpen Beacon." INTRODUCTION. 3 near Inkpen church into a well-defined ridge, from 100 to 150 feet high, which follows a nearly-regular curve, westward and south- westward, by the village of Shalbourne to Wilton Down, and encloses an oval tract of rolling country, with sandy soils and hollow lanes, known as the Vale of Ham. At Wilton Down the ridge unites with the lower slopes of the main body of the upland to the; south, but immediately diverges north-westward and, assum- ing a more one-sided (cuesta-like) form, passes out of the district at Durley. Near Wolf Hall, within the ridge, part of a second and more extensive low-lying tract — ^the Vale of Pewsey — is in- dicated at the south-western corner of the sheet. The principal streams traversing the southern belt are the Shal- bourne and the Wilton Water or Bedwyn Brook — the latter now in part replaced by the Kennet and Avon Canal. Both streams escape northward from th& enclosed vales, where they have their origin, by narrow gaps in the ridge above described. (3.) Though lacking the strongly-marked features of the border- ing uplands, the median belt of the Kennet Vale is by no means devoid of relief. Much of the ground within its limits might be fairly described as hilly ; and even where true hills are absent the broader ridges invariably stand well above the valley-bottoms, with which they are connected by moderately-steep slopes. On the west, around the villages of Froxfield and the Bedwyns, a deeply-trenched platform of chalk, between 500 and 600 feet above sea-level, bears some rather extensive tracts of woodland (remnants of old Savernake Forest), and is surmounted, towards the south, by rounded and flat-topped hills of Eocene clays and sands. Eastward, this platform falls to lower levels, and even- tually passes beneath an expanding sheet of Tertiary beds which, with their capping of gravelly drift, support broad, heath-grown common-lands, interpersed with fir-woods and cultivated fields. From the northern and from the southern borders of this tract the even, gravel-strewn ground between the minor valleys slopes inward to a nearly level expanse forming the summit of the plateau which bears the commons of Wash and Greenham, to the south and south-east of Newbury. Hamlets and farmsteads are freely distributed over this part of the district : the villages, however, lie mostly towards the north, within or near the Kennet Valley, where the towns of Newbury and Hungerford also are situated. The River Kennet, with its selvedge of marsh-land and rich water-meadow, traverses the belt from west to east in a gradually widening, trench-like valley, and collects in its course all the upland streams above mentioned with the exception of the Pang, which delivers its waters directly to the Thames. Some of the little brooks draining the sandy and gravelly country to the south of the Kennet below Hungerford are independent tributaries of that river, but the majority of them are collected by the Enborne, which runs parallel to the main stream for a distance of ten miles before it joins the latter, by Aldermaston, a little beyond the eastern 9114. B -2 4 INTRODUCTION. boundary of this district. The Kennet derives much of its watef from strong springs which break out along the bottom of its valley, and is, therefore, in a measure independent of its tributaries, whose length and volume vary greatly with the seasons. The trough-like form of the country included in Sheet 267 finds a rough parallel in the structure of the underlying rocks. The broad monoclinal disturbance which has given the Chalk of the Berkshire Downs its gentle south-eastward dip, on the one hand ; and the anticline of Kingsclere and Pewsey, which has brought the Upper Greensand within reach of the agencies of subaerial erosion about Ham and "Wolf Hall, on the other, between them define the syncline of the Vale of the Kennet. Consideration of these tectonic features, and of their influence on the relief and the natural- drainage of the district, is reserved for a later page. The geological formations indicated by colours and signs on Sheet 267 are as foUows : — Eecent fTufa. (? Pleistocene in part) (Alluvium. fBrickearth. Pleistocene J River and Valley Gravel. (? Pliocene in part) ) Clay-with-Flints. [ Plateau Gravel. r(Lower) Bagshot Beds. Eocene I London Clay. iReading Beds. ! Upper Chalk. Middle Chalk. Lower Chalk. Upper Greensand (Selbornian). In the absence of deep well-borings the character of the rocks beneath the Upper Greensand is not positively known. From observations made in adjoining districts, however, it is inferred that the invisible members of the Cretaceous system — including between 100 and 150 feet of Gault, and a little Lower Greensand — are underlain by a considerable thickness of Jurassic and older Secondary sediments. Coal, if present, lies at too great a depth to justify the expenditure of a large sum on exploratory boring, until its existence in workable quantity, or in a favourable tectonic position, beneath the thinner cover of Secondary strata in the country to the north or west, has been demonstrated. CHAPTER II. UPPER CRETACEOUS. Upper Greensand. The removal of the Chalk from the larger of the dome-like swellings which occur at intervals along the course of the Kings - clere-Pewsey anticline has exposed the^ older, Selbornian, rocks as inliers in the Vales of Pewsey, Ham, and Kingsclere. Neither in the Vale of Ham, nor in the small piece of the Pewsey Vale which comes within the scope of this Memoir, has the inferior, Gault, division of the Selbornian Series been exposed at the surface. The superior, more arenaceous, Upper Greensand covers the floors of these depressions from side to side, rising into a rounded eminence (which distantly resembles an inverted boat) in the central part of the Vale of Ham. It is probable that a few of the deeper wells in these areas have been carried down to the Gault. From the very scanty information available with respect to such excavations, and from data collected in adjoining districts, it would seem that the Upper Greensand hereabouts has a maxi- mum thickness of 160 feet. Mr. Jukes-Browne divides the Upper Greensand of the Vale of Pewsey into a lower Malmstone, 80 to 90 feet thick, and a higher Green Sands group, 60 to 70 feet thick. The whole of the first division and about 30 feet of the second is referred by him to the zone of Ammonites rostratus, and the remainder of the latter to the zone of Pecten asper and Cardiaster fossarius. In this district the Green Sands alone are' seen. These consist of well-stratified, pale, to rather dark, greyish-green to yellowish-brown, speckled, cal- careous, glauconitic sand and sandstone, which weather into a greyish-brown, light soil. Large concretions, or doggers, of the same material cemented by calcite occur frequently, in regular courses, together with scattered lumps and continuous layers of compact, grejdsh 'chert and cherty sandstone. The lowest beds visible are probably those exposed in the two cuttings on the Midland and South Western Junction Railway north of Grafton Station. Only the extreme northern end of the northern cutting is shown on Sheet 267, but the particulars and accompanying diagrams of the complete section given in Mr. Jukes-Browne's Memoir " On the Gault and Upper Greensand of England " (1900, pp. 263-64) may be advantageously reproduced here. " The first cutting north of Grafton shows a series of beds dipping southward, the highest of which cannot be many feet below the Chloritic Marl. At the southern end the dip is about 2J° to the UPPER GREENSAND. south, but this decreases northward till at the northern end the beds are nearly horizontal (see Fig. 1). In the next cutting the same beds are seen again, but they dip to the north at about 3°. The thickness of the beds changes somewhat in passing from one cutting to another, and they may be correlated as follows : — a. Greenish-grey sand with small lumps of chert ; Pecfen asper, P. orbicularis, Lima semisulcata, Hamites simplex, and Ammonites (fragment like splendens) 1. Whitish calcareous sandstone with little glauoon- ite ; Avicula gryphceoides, Pecien {Neithea) 5-costatus, and Discoidea suhuculus h. Greyish sand with Pecten asper and Discoidea suhuculus .... 2. Layer of dull grey chert, compact, opaque, with Avicula gryphceoides and Pecten asper c. Greensand with doggers of sandstone ; P. asper 3. Doggers of hard greenish-grey sandstone and some chert d, 4, & e. Yellow-grey glauconitio sand with three layers of sandstone doggers ; SerpvZa concava - - - - 5. Course of hard sandstone doggers /. Yellowish-grey sand with ferruginous nodules 6. Doggers of compact cherty stone g. Pine greenish-grey sand mottled with lighter streaks and patches, a few small phosphatic nodules 7. Soft mottled sandstone, Avicula gryphceoides and Pecten orbicularis h. Fine greenish-grey sand, mottled as above, Ammonites rostratiis .... 1st Cutting. Peet. 1 ? 3 1 371 2nd Cutting. Feet. n 8 H 1 2 3 1 1 39 The three lowest beds, g, 7, and h, may certainly be regarded as belongmg to the zone of Ammonites rostratus, but where the top of this zone should be placed is doubtful." s? an ^ •I •1 F? 1 S •& § =a ■:§ -a o 05 ^ bo O 2 ■;i C3 O •a o I be M bfi "fi O C8 bo 2 ■I P s i •*i 5D r4 t» -* 60 bo o T3 s ft s o a 3 s 1 JS -tJ TS TS ^ 1 1 CD 53 -4-) m pii 4^ iS a OT ^ •^ § ^ >i a ns" 5 1 1 ^ OJ ^ T3 1 4^ .a .1^ 1 1 p^ ,a TJ ,4 :s a SH fl ^ C3 tn' s h u y [>> ^ ■« i-< (N u CO >« ^ o O M ..C-ll-' mu mi CO 8 nPPER, GEEENSAND. Greensands witt numerous bands of speckled, calcareous sand- stone, and of about the same age as those just described, are seen m the sides of hollow roads through the village of Ham ; in the Spray road at a point about half a mile north-east of Ham church, and in the main street, near the schools, at Shalbourne. At the southern end of the latter village, at a spot about a quarter of a mile west of the smithy, somewhat higher beds, composed of grey sand passing down into sandstone with Pecten orbicularis, are exposed; and a similar section occurs in the side of the hollow lane leading down to the stream, on the north-west of the village. The good section in the yard of the Great Western Eailway Station at Savernake (just beyond the western border of Sheet 267) has recently been much enlarged by the removal of material for the construction of the embankment of the new loop or branch- connection* with the Midland and South Western Junction Rail- way at Crofton, and now shows about 30 feet of speckled greensand, containing many bands of doggers, and becoming brown and argillaceous towards the top. The beds dip northward at 7°. In the lower part of the section, probably about 25 to 30 feet below the base of the Chalk, the goblet-shaped Pachypoterion rohustum, Siphonia tulipa, Doryderma henetti, and other characteristic siliceous sponges occur in large numbers and excellent preservation, together with many fragments of Pecten orbicularis. The same beds were formerly well exposed in the cutting farther to the east, and from them Mr. T. Codrington obtained " many sponges belonging to the genera CJienendopora, Polypothecia, and Jerea, with a few specimens of Siphonia fyriformis { = tulipa) and Hallirhoa costata." t Mr. Codrington states J that " near the east end of the canal tunnel, at about the level of the sponges, the scapulae with some ribs and vertebrae of a Plesiosaurus were found. It is remarkable that among the ribs were six or seven grey quartzose pebbles, varying from half an inch to an inch in diameter. I never saw another pebble in the sand, and these occur at some depth below the chloritio marl in which there are sometimes small pebbles, although none occur in it here." It is probable the stones were trans- ported hither, from some distant shore, in the belly of the animal with whose remains they were found. Similar bunches of pebbles are not infrequently associated with skeletons of Plesiosaurs found elsewhere. § When the first Geological Survey of the district was in progress Mr. W. T. Aveline observed a " hard, siliceous white rock " resemb- ling malmstone, at, or within a few feet of, the junction of the Upper Greensand with the Lower Chalk " by the side of the brook on the * Not indio.'tted on the hand-coloured edition of the one-inch geological map. t " The Geology of Berks and Hants Extension, and Marlborough Rail- ways." Mag. Wilts. Arch., and Nat. Hist. Soc. Vol. ix., 1865, No. 26, p. 170. (Separate issue, p. 4.) J Op. cil., pp. 170-1. (Separate issue, pp. 4-5.) § Vide 8. W. Williston on " North American Plesiosaurs." Fidd Colum- bian Museum Publications, No. 73, p. 75 ; and B. Brown " Stomach Stones and Food of Plesiosaurs." Science xx., 1'904, pp. 184-6. Also A. Smith Woodward in Proc. Geol. Assoc. Vol. xix. 1906, p. 308. tJPPEE GEEENSAND. west side of Shalbourne," and " on the roads north and south."* This rook may correspond with the " lenticular lumps of hard whitish siliceous stone " observed by Mr. Jukes-Browne, in a similar position, in the western part of the" Vale of Pewsey.f Mr. Jukes-Browne has remarked that the green sands of the Pewsey Vale seem to form a long, east and west sand-bank " which slopes away and thins out to the northward." ± The following list of the fossils obtained from the Upper Greensand of Savernake and the Grafton cuttings is mainly compiled from the list, and from separate records, published in Mr. Jukes-Browne's Memoir on " The Gault and Upper Greensand of England," pp. 264, 266, the only additions to the names there given being those of Plesiasaurus (which refers to Mr. T. Codring- ton's specimen, lately placed in the British Museum (Natural History, South Kensington^) and Doryderma benetti, Hinde (which was found — together with examples of some others of the fossils mentioned below — by Mr. LI. Treacher and the writer). No attempt is here made to revise the names taken from the Survey Memoir. Specimens of the sponges named may be seen in the Devizes Museum. Plesioaaurus (Cimoliosaurus) sp. Ammonites Mantslli rostratus varians Hamites simplex Nautilus elegans simplex [? expansus] TurriUtes tuberculatus Avioula gryphaeoides Lima Hoperi [= globosa] — dupiniana [= semisuloata] Pooten asper — orbicularis — (Neithea) quinque costatus Plioatula peotinoides Pholas constricta Rhynohonella latissima [dimidiata] -^— Gibbsi [? Sohlosnbachi] Terebratula biplicata Discoidea subuoulus Serpula (Vermioularia) oonoava Carterella oylindrioa Chentendopora MicheUni Doryderma benetti Hallirhoa costata Pachypoterion robustum Siphonia tulipa OrbitoUna ooncava * Memoir on Sheet 12 : " The Geology of Parts of Berkshire and Hamp- shire," 1862, p. 10. •j- "The Gault and Upper Greensand of England," 1900, p. 259. J Op. cit., p. 267. § R. 3316 in Museum catalogue. 10 CHAPTER III. UPPER CRETACEOUS. Chalk. The great series of white and greyish-white, earthy limestones, collectively termed the Chalk, occupies about three-fourths of the surface of the Hungerford district, and underlies all the younger formations indicated on Sheet 267. In this part of the country the total thickness of the series, where most fully developed, is estimated to be about 700 feet — a thickness not unusual in the Southern Midlands, but much less than that attained near the South and East Coasts, where measurements of 1,000 to 1,300 feet have been recorded. The larger sub-divisions usually made are : — Upper Chalk : Typically soft and white, and containing many flints. Middle Chalk : White to greyish-white, harder, and less flinty. Lower Chalk : Greyish and marly, without flints. These divisions are distinguished on the map by appropriate shades of green. Besides the above-named broad lithological groups the following eleven zones, characterised by peculiar assemblages of fossils, have been recognised in this country. Zone of Ostrea lunata „ Belemitella mucronata „ Actinocamax quadratus I" Upper Chalk „ Marsupites testudinarius ) (with Chalk Rock at its base.] „ Micraster oor-anguinum „ Micraster cor-testudinarium „ Holaster planus „ Terebratulina ^ Middle Chalk „ Rhynchonella cuvieri J (with Melboum Rock at its base.) „ Holaster subglobosus I Lower Chalk „ Ammonites varians J (with Chloritio Marl at its base.) [It should be noted that the lower limit of the Chalk Rock — or of the beds with the characteristic Chalk Rock fauna — does not always, nor, indeed, usually, coincide with the junction of the Holaster planus and Terebratulina zones, but may occur a few feet above the base of the former zone.] In this district the zonal series is incomplete, the youngest beds which occur at the surface pertaining to the lower part of the zone of Actinocamax quadratus. Local fossil-collectors are few, and most of the data required for the determination of the zones were obtained by the writer in the course of a series of short visits to the district, made during the summers of 1904-5. Mr. Llewellyn Treacher rendered great assistance in the reconnaissance of the highest beds. Specimens of most of the Chalk fossils mentioned in the following pages are in Mr. Treacher's collection, and examples of CHALK. 11 the remainder (chiefly from the Chalk Eock near Lambourn, and the higher part of the Upper Chalk around Winterbourne and at Shaw) are in the possession of Miss M. Baylis, of Wyfield Manor, Boxford, or are preserved in the Cloth Hall Museum at Newbury. Lower Chalk. The Lower Chalk tint occupies a very small area of the Sheet , appearing as an irregular strip, with a width equivalent to one- eighth to half a mile, bordering the Upper Greensand tracts on the south-west, and as two tongue-like patches in the bottoms of the upper branches of the Aldbourne valley, on the north-west. In the field, the Lower Chalk forms the moderately -sloping ground at the foot of the Chalk escarpments, and the moist and marly soil resulting from its decomposition makes good arable land. The lower beds of this division are generally of a light grey, or grey- bufE colour, and flaggy; the higher are greyish- white to pure white , blocky, and harsh to the touch. Mr. Jukes -Browne estimates the thickness of the Lower Chalk in North Wiltshire to be about 240 feet, but this refers to the main outcrop and the western part of the Vale of Pewsey. Eastward, the thickness seems to decrease, and the relation of the boundary and outcrop to the contour lines in places where the dip is slight point to 150 feet as a more probable estimate for the south-western part of the Hungerford area. At some spots there seems to be room for no more than 120 feet of beds between the UppeT Greensand and the Melbourn Rock. No complete, and but few good partial sections of the Lower Chalk are to be seen, and only one exposure of its junction with the beds below was observed by Mr. F. J. Bennett. This was on the Great Western Railway, to the south-east of Savernake Station, where a widening of the line, in 1898, showed a very gradual passage of bufi, marly chalk down into a greenish sandy marl, and of the latter into a greensand with seams of phosphatic nodules — a feeble representative of the Chloritic Marl. Mr. Codrington saw a similar section in the road-cutting by the Station, about 1864. Some idea of the character and succession of the lower beds of the division can be obtained from the very shallow and discontinuous exposures in the channel of the little wet-weather stream which follows the lane running northward from Bungum Bam, near the eastern end of the Vale of Ham. The brook enters the lane at the outcrop of the Upper Greensand and runs northward across the edges of the beds which dip in the same direction, ex- posing (1) light grey sandy sub-soil of the Upper Greensand ; (2) rather soft, grey, marly chalk ; (3) hard and harsh grey chalk with rusty stains ; (4) softer, grey, flaggy beds, becoming harder upwards and containing remains of Inoceramus and casts of a small Pecten. The angle of the dip being un- ascertainable the beds could not be measured, but the highest, flaggy group (4) is clearly the thickest. Along the foot of the escarpment west and south-west of Shal- bourne, Mr. Bemiett noted the following exposures of the lower beds on the left bank of the stream. 12 LOWER CHALK. At the back of the farm-buildings attached to Shalbourne Mill some very hard, blue-hearted, siliceous chalk is seen at the bottom of a bank. A little to the south-west of this there is a section, 8 feet in height, in " Marl Eock," from which Mr. J. Rhodes ob- tained " Rhynchonella plicatilis, Sow. ; Inoceramus latus ? Mant., Lima sp. (fragment), Pecten orbicularis, Sow., and a tooth of Otodus." A pit in " Chalk Marl," one furlong south-west of the Church, yielded "Zwocerosmas latus "i Mant., Cyprina sp. (frag- ment), and Ammonites varians." These fossils were named by Mr. Gr. Sharman, and are now in the Museum of Practical Geology. A little more than one mile south-west of the church a small pit showed a grey, speckled, sandy chalk, " like Totternhoe Stone." Remains of Schlcenhacliia varians (J. Sow.),* [Ammonites .iuctt.] were found also in a small exposure of grey chalk, half a mile south-south-west of Hamspray House ; and grey beds, of a more or less marly character, were observed at intervals around the Ham Vale, and along the north-eastern side of the Vale of Pewsey. The whiter and more blocky chalk of the Holaster suhglohosus- zone, which comes on above, is poorly exposed in a grass-grown pit on the north side of the Great Western Railway by Freewarren Bridge, near Crofton, and in the banks of the main road up the escarpment to the north of Shalbourne. The Belemnite Marls, which mark the top of the zone of H. sub- globosus and of the Lower Chalk over almost the whole of the southern and eastern parts of this country, and over much of north- eastern France, are very thin in this district, but readily recog- nisable. The best exposures are (or were) in a field-pit a quarter of a mile south-west of Inkpen church, and at the southern end of the Dods Down Brick Company's siding (not mapped on the hand coloured edition of Sheet 267) near Wilton Water. f In the former, the marls are represented by a band of pale yellowish- and greenish-grey, marly chalk, about 1 foot thick, which rests on grey chalk, and is overlain by a few feet of the hard, yellowish, nodular chalk of the Melbourn Rock. The dip at this spot is 10° north-north-west. The details of the clearer exposure at Dods Down are as follows (see Fig. 2, p. 14) : — -p . Zone of /Melbourn Rock : hard yellowish to greyish chalk Shynchondla / with many closely-set layers of small yeUowish- cuvieri. \ brown nodules - /Belemnite Marls : grey to greenish-grey shaly marl, with a discontinuous layer of whiter blocky chalk. Zone of 2 inches wide, near the middle, and many scattered Holaster I angular and rounded pieces of the same. Aetino- camax plernis (Blainv.), Cidaris hirudo, Sorig. - 1 Light grey flaggy chalk, with irregular marly veins I and partings exposed 6 svhgldbosus. * When the name of the author of a specific name is given in parenthesis, as in this case, it is to be understood that the specific name in question was used by its author m combination with a generic name other than that indicated. t This section is just within Sheet 283. LOWER CHALK. 13 The dip is, approximately, north-eastward, at 15°. The Belem- nite Marls here are apparently in the transition stage between the Southern and South-Eastern Counties type, in which they form practically a single band, and the Berkshire or Midland type, in which they are divided into two distinct bands by a thin bed of firm, white chalk. Of the Lower Chalk inliers n^ar Aldbourne nothing is known. Their existence seems to have been inferred from, and their boun- daries mapped by the aid of, a few exposures and surface-indica- tions of the Melbourn Eock, and of nodular beds believed to be that Eock, on the lower slopes of the valleys north-west of the village. In the single exposure of supposed Melbourn Eock seen by the writer, at the side of the high road a little north-west of North Field Barn, the nodular chalk clearly belongs to the zone of Rhynchonella cuvieri, but bears little resemblance to typical Melbourn Eock ; and a thin band of marl (suggestive of the Belem- nite Marls) towards the bottom of the section seems to be merely one of those more argillaceous layers which occur well above the base of that zone in this part of the country. Details of the section are given on a later page (16). The very scanty information so far forthcoming concerning the Lower Chalk in the area with which this Memoir deals, may be summarized as follows : — At the base there is a thin group of sandy and clayey beds, with a very attenuated representative of the Chloritic Marl. These are succeeded by a grey, marly and flaggy chalk (the Chalk Marl) with Schlcenhachia varians, and at least one layer of hard, siliceous rock ; above which there comes the rarely-exposed whiter chalk of the Holaster subglobosus-zone, capped by the thin, but persistent, laminated marl with Actinocamax pknus. Middle Chalk. This division occupies a larger area, at the surface, than the Lower Chalk, but is seldom well exposed. In the south-west its outcropping edge; or basset surface, forms a narrow belt ranging along the' steepest part of the Chalk escarpments which overlook the Vales of Ham and Pewsey, while on the north-west it occupies much of the bottom and of the sides of the higher branches of the Lambourn and Aldbourne Valleys. Its soils, though often dry and thin, are commonly cultivated with those of the moister beds below in wide, hedgeless fields. The steeper slopes on the Middle and Upper Chalks are generally devoted to pasturage. A shallow railway-cutting in the Chalk escarpment south-east of Crofton, which was made, in 1902, for a siding to connect the Dods Down Brick Works with Midland and South Western Junc- tion Eailway, exhibits an almost complete section of the Middle J4 MIDDLE CHALK. -< o CO 'IS O ?!5 m Sc 3J:; E-H M O Chalk. (Fig. 2.) The more important features of this section are summarized below : — '■ Feet. '^11. Wliite blooky chalk with many courses of solid flint-nodules, and a few seams of tabular flint (lowest part alone is shown in diagram) measured 150 \ 10. White chalk with numerous layers and veins of thin tabular flint and some bands of nodular flint; a marked layer of the latter at the base 1 1 s O "sD O ^9. Hard nodular and lumpy chalk. Spondylus spinosus (J. Sow.), Ino- ceramus ; Terebratvla semiglobosa, J. Sow., T. carnea, J. Sow., Holaster placenta, Ag. 8. Chalk Rock.— Hard but rubbly cream-coloured chalk, with 5 layers of green nodules 7. Hard, lumpy and nodular, greyish chalk c3 O ■73 /6, o-?- J5 / Firm, blocky, and flaggy, white and greyish chalk, with grey marly bands and seams of marl which are most prominent near the middle. Inoceramus ; Terebrattdina gracilis, var. lata, Eth. m 80 10 12 CO Si ^5. Hard, very lumpy and nodular, light grey chalk. Inoceramus mytiloides, Mant., Z. cuvieri, J. de C. Sow. ; Rhynchondla cuvieri, d'Orb. ; Terebratvla semiglobosa, J. Sow. ; Discoidea dixoni, Forbes 36 4. Gre5dsh, flaggy chalk, nodular in places, with 3 marked seams of grey marl — one of them at the top 16^ 3. Melbourn Rock. — Hard yellowish to grejdsh chalk with many closely set courses of yellowish-brown nodules - 6 ri4 O o °'§ d Cq . Belemnite Marls. — Grey to greenish grey laminated marl, with a dis- continuous layer of whiter chalk near the middle, and many angular and rounded pieces of the same. " Actinocamax plenus (Blainv.) ; Oidaris hirudo, Sorig. . Light grey flaggy chalk, with irregular marly veins and partings seen MIDDLE CHALK. 15 The prevailing dip is north-eastward, at angles of 15° to 20° in the lower part of the cutting, and of 10° to 12° in the higher. As the section is, for the most part, a very shallow one many of the beds are in a disintegrated condition, and when first seen by the writer, early in 1905, the sides of the cutting had already become somewhat obscured by talus ; but the above measurements, which were carried out with the assistance of Mr. Treacher, probably do not err by many feet. . The thickness of the Middle Chalk here is nearly 120 feet ; which agrees with an estimate made at Ham Hill, four miles distant to the east, and is about that which might have been inferred from the known attenuation of this division from 200 feet in the Chiltern Hills, on the north-east, to less than 100 feet in the Warminster district, on the south-west. This south-westward thinning appears to be due almost entirely to a shrinkage in the higher TerebratuUna-heds of the division. The upper limit of the Terebratulina- zone in the Dods Down cutting could not, in the seeming absence of guide-fossils near the top, be exactly deter- mined. It is not likely to lie more than 2 or 3 feet below or above the horizon here provisionally assigned to it. Throughout this district, and far beyond its borders, the hard nodular Melbourn Rock, so well shown in the above-described section, forms the basal member of the Middle Chalk. On imper- fectly graded slopes of valley-sides and of escarpments the outcrop- surface of this Rock is often marked by a low undulation, or ill- defined terraciform feature ; sometimes also by a belt of whiter, rubbly soil, very apparent on newly -ploughed fields. These superficial indications facilitate the task of mapping the common limit of the Lower and Middle Chalk, but, in the absence of sections, it is not always possible to distinguish them from the similar features which are liable to occur at the outcrops of the other hard nodular beds frequently developed near the middle and the top of the Rhynchonella cuvieri-zone. The opening of a fresh section, or the re-examination of an old exposure in the light of the scanty but sufficient pala3ontological evidence obtained in neighbouring pits, has shown that the boundary of the Middle Chalk has been drawn at too high a leVel on the map at Ham Hill, Dods Down, and near Aldbourne. On the one-inch scale these errors are unim- portant, though at Dods Down the greater part of the R. cuvieri- zone falls within the area coloured as Lower Chalk. Rather lumpy beds, referable to the middle part of the R. cuvieri-zone, are shown to a depth of 40 feet in a road-side quarry at the foot of Ham Hill. The chalk here is white to light grey in tint, and contains fine undulate seams of marl. There are a few, very small, branching flints. Fossils are scarce, the only examples noticed being Rhynchonella cuvieri, Terebratula semi- glohosd, Asteroid-ossicles, and remains of a small, thin-tested echinoid, referred by Dr. A. W. Rowe to Cardiaster cretaceus, Sorig. The Melbourn Rock, with its characteristic yellowish-brown 16 MIDDLE CHALK. nodules, is seen in the road-banks at a lower level a little to the north. A quarry at the cross-roads a quarter of a mile north ot Shal- bourne church, showing the highest part of the Terebratulina-zone, is described below (p. 20). In the upper branches of the Lambourn and Aldbourne Valleys the nodular R. cuvieri-heis are occasionally exposed in shallow pits which are, .or have been, worked for road-metal. In one of these excavations, near North Field Barn, one and a quarter miles north of Aldbourne church, the following succession is seen :— Bubbly soil. . I'eet 4. Greyish-white, to white, lumpy and nodular chalk (weathering yellow), with a few rusty concretions. Bhynchondla cuvieri, d'Orb. ; Inoceramiw mytiloides, Mant. ; Terebratida semiglobosa, J. Sow. ; Oidaris serrifera, Forbes, Hemiaster minimus (Ag.) ; Ostrea sp. (fragments) - ■ ' " 3. Grey to greenish grey-marl, with seams, nodules (or pebbles), and small angular pieces of white chalk - i 2. White, nodular chalk, becoming more homogeneous downward and containing small scattered pebbles (?) of somewhat harder white chalk. A thin and impersistent marly seam at the bottom 2 1. Nodular and lumpy chalk, like that at the top of section (4). Rhynch. cuvieri ; Inoceramus mytiloides - - exposed 1 Nodular beds, at or near the base of the zone, were observed by Mr. Bennett in roadside pits one mile to the south-west, and one and a half and one and a third miles north-west, of North Field Barn ; also near the tumuli half a mile south-east of Ashbourne Warren Farm. A little below the 500-feet contour on Windmill Hill, north-east of Aldbourne, there is a series of old excavations in the zones of Tere- bratulina and H. planus, by the side of the road to Baydon. The lowest of these shows 12 feet of blocky white chalk containing, near the bottom, a prominent layer of solid nodular flints with a thin tabular seam just below it. The beds, which weather a pale gree?nish-yellow, have yielded only Terebratulina gracilis var. lata, scanty remains oiHolaster'i, and ferruginous casts of Plocoscyphia. The pits in the 15 to 20 feet of beds which intervene between the top of this section and the Chalk Rock are sloped and grass-grown, and show very little of a lumpy, greyish chalk. Near Lambourn, blocky chalk of the Terebratulina-zone is seen by the side of the road a little to the north-east of North Farm, in the bottom of Farn Coombe, and at Fognam Barn, but there seem to be no good sections in the neighbourhood. The Fognam Barn pit was inspected by the Geologists' Association in 1905.* The only fossils found were Terehratula semiglobosa and Ostrea vesicularis ?. * Proc. Geol. Assoc., vol. xix, 1905, p. 226, 17 CHAPTER IV. UPPER CRETACEOUS. Upper Chalk. The Upper Chalk occurs at the surface over a much greater area of the Hungerford district than any other group of solid rocks. Forming but a thin cap to the narrow and branching ridges of Middle Chalk on the north-west, where the higher beds of the formation have long been exposed to subaerial degradation, it thickens rapidly southwards and south-eastwards, and soon becomes a continuous sheet, or slab, in which the valleys are less and less deeply engraved. On the south and south-west the te'ctonic conditions are unfavourable, for the development of long, inter- digitating ridges and spurs in the Chalk, and the boundary of the higher division of that formation usually follows a slightly sinuous line. Save for the Chalk Rock and associated nodular or lumpy beds at its base, and for some thinner and more local rock-bands near its middle and summit, the Upper Chalk of this area is soft and white. Flints are generally abundant, but become notably scarce in the higher (Marsupites) beds ; and marly seams, so common in the Middle Chalk, are seldom encountered. There are no complete sections in the district. South of Kintbury, where it probably attains its fullest development, the Upper Chalk is estimated to be- about 400 feet thick. Much of the Upper Chalk is overspread by a sheet of flinty loam or clay, and forms tolerably good arable land. In the north- west and extreme south, where the soil is very thin, it is mainly under grass. The steepest slopes often support small hanging woods and copses, and though now generally used as sheep-walks, not infrequently bear terraces and other signs of former cultivation. As the Upper Chalk is visibly continuous throughout practi- cally the whole district, and often exposed, the more important sections will be dealt with under appropriate zonal headings. The main outcrop- or basset-surfaces of the zones range from east to west, across the northern and central parts of the district, in irregular, but broadly-parallel, bands, which curve round the western extremity, of the London Basin in the country covered by the adjoining Marlborough Sheet (266) and, becoming greatly contracted, re-enter the Hungerford area at Durley, on the south- west ; extending thence, eastward, along the higher part of the narrow ridge bordering the Eocene Beds, to West Woodhay. In recognition of thid rudely-concentric arrangement the sections in each zone will be taken — as nearly as may be — ^in tlieir order from north-east to west, and from west to south-east. 9114. G 18 UPPER CHALK. Zone op Holaster planus. The band of hard yellowish or cream-coloured limestone, with grains of glauconite and layers of green-coated, slightly phosphatic nodules, known as the Chalk Rock, which has been taken as the lowest bed of the Upper Chalk in mapping this district, is one of the most striking of the minor lithological subdivisions of the whole formation. Recognisable even in small fragments amongst the soil it is easily traceable across the country. On steep grass slopes its outcrop occasionally is bare of soil, and forms white scars on the sides of the valleys. The characteristic fauna of this interesting band has so far been recognised at only one locality, viz., Lambourn. In North Hants and in South Oxon the Chalk Rock appears to lie wholly within the zone of Holaster planus. It probably does so here ; but, owing to the paucity and bad condition of the critical sections, neither the top nor the bottom of that zone has been exactly located in the Hungerford area. The upper limit has, however, been determined, by means of the test-features of Mic- raster, near Burghclere (a little beyond the borders of this district, on the south-east), where it lies between 15 and 16 feet above the top of the Chalk Rock. The general downward succession through the zone in this part of the country is as follows : — Lithological Character. / Zone of Micraster cor- festvdinarium (lower part) Zone of Holaster planus Zone of Terebratulina White chalk, often nodular and lumpy, with scattered fUnt-nodules, and seams of tabular flint. [Seldom seen in Chalk Rock pits.] Light grey lumpy or nodu- lar chalk. Chalk Rock. Lower part sometimes a mass of very hard detached, but closely packed nodules. Greyish, nodular and lumpy chalk. White to greyish, blooky, or lumpy chalk with grey marly seams at or near the top. Known Fossil Contents. Micraster prcecursor, M. cor-testvdinarium, and other char- acteristic forms near base. Micraster prcecursor, Holaster placenta, etc. ^maRH.planus- zone, and special " Reussianum-zone" faunas. Fossils scarce : No Micrasters found. Fossils scarce. Terebrat^dina gracilis var. lata. Thickness in feet. 10-15 10-12 4-8 CHALK ROCK. 19 Assuming that the lumpy grejdsh chalk immediately below the Chalk Rock belongs to the H. plamis-zone, the average thickness of that zone may be taken as about 30 feet. The irregular, inter-looking, sub-nodular blocks or lumps which characterise the Challc at about this horizon commonly exhibit a glossy pseudo-fibrou s appearance, probably due to the unequal yielding of the heterogeneous rock under pressure. A softer, grejdsh, marly chalk associated with the lumps not infrequently adheres to the latter, and to the tests of eohinoids, in roughly-conical cakes with slickensided surfaces. The flints in these beds are generally small and globular or finger-shaped, with rather thick, friable rinds. Chalk Rock has been mapped, mainly from surface'-indications, in two places north of Compton, and about Wither's Barn, north of East Garston. There are a number of exposures around Lambourn and Aid- bourne, and on the higher slopes of the valleys and combes to the north-west of those places. Most of these, however, are mere patches of rubble, thinly tufted with grass. The best section near Lambourn is in a small and rarely-worked pit, on a by-road, a quarter of a mile north of Bockhampton Farm. This shows : — Feet. 2. Light greyish lumpy chalk ; rubbly in places ; with a layer of solid, grey, pitted flint-nodules at the base. Terebratida semiglobosa, J. Sow., and rusty impressions of Ventriculites. 2 1. Chalk Rock, massive and cream-coloured. A 3-inch course of bright green nodules with many casts of fossils at the top : three other thinner layers of green nodules lower down. Scattered concretions of oxidised pyrites - - exposed 8 The fossils obtained from the Chalk Rock include — Heteroceras sp. Inoceramus sp. Paohydiscus peramplus (Mant.) Nuoula ? Scaphites geinitzi, d'Orb. Spondylus spinosus (J. Sow.) Avellana ? Teredo amphisbaena {Ooldf.) Cerithium sp. RhynchoneUa pKcatilis {J. Sow.) Natioa (Naticina) vulgaris ? Bettss Terebratula carnea, J. Sow. Pleurotomaria (Leptomaria) per- T. semiglobosa, J. Sow. spectiva, Mant. Micraster preecursor, Rowe Trochus sp. Parasmilia sp. Turbo geinitzi. Woods Most of these specimens are fragments of casts. The three examples of Micraster are internal oasts of a small form, about 30 mm. in length. One of them, referred to M. pra;cursor, retains a piece of the test showing a trough - shaped ambulacrum with a distinctly-sutured interporiferous area. The Heteroceras IB, apparently, of the unnamed species figured by Mr. H. Woods,* and the Inoceramus referred to is the small, and very common Chalk Reck form illustrated by the same author.t Here, as in many of the fossiliferous sections of the Chalk Rock in Oxon and Bucks, the remains of the mere characteristic organisms occur mainly in the highest band of green-coated nodules. Another small section of the Rock is to be seen by the road side * In Quart. Journ. Oeol. Soc. lii., 1896, pi. ii., figs. 6-8. t Ibid, liii., 1897, pi. xxvii, figs. 14-17. 9114. 20 UPPER CHALK. near The City ; and there are two more on Bishopstone Down, to the north and north-west of Russley Park ; but none of them has so far yielded any fossils. At about one-third of a mile east-north-east of Aldbourne church, by the side of the Baydon road, an old pit shows : — Feet. 2. Greyish nodular and lumpy chalk, Micraster prcecursor, Rowe, M. cor-testudinarium (Goldf.), Spondyliis spinaosus (J. Sow.), Ventricvlites sp. - ■ " ^" 1. Chalk rock, mth green nodules at top - - exposed IJ The beds appear to dip north-westward, at about 10°. The Micrasters found are of the group-forms distinctive of the H. plan-us-zone. Mr. Bennett, who saw the section when it was in better condition, reports that the Chalk Rock is 10 feet thick, and contains two layers of green nodules, and " some fossils." Passing to the southern outcrop : The Chalk Rock was for- merly well shown in the Great Western Railway cutting at Crofton Engine-House ; and the upper part of it was seen by Mr. Bennett in a pit on the Roman Road, half a mile to the south-eastward. The latter section now exhibits about 8 feet of the overlying nodu- lar beds, which contain an abundance of Echinocorys scvtatus Leske (gibbous form), Spondylus spinosus (J. Sow.), and Terebratula semiglobosa, J. Sow., together with Holaster placenta, Ag., Micraster . prcecursor, Rowe (small form, with feebly-inflated areas), Tere- bratula carnea, J. Sow., and remains of Inoceramus. In the Dods Down cutting, close by, the Chalk Rock is 12 feet thick. It is much disintegrated and has yielded no fossils. Holaster placenta and Terebratula carnea were found in the rubbly chalk representing the beds above the Rock. In North, Wilts, Berks, Oxon, and Bucks Holaster placenta is fairly common in the higher part of the H. planus-zone, while Hohsfer planus (for which the former has often been mistaken) seems comparatively rare. The pit at the cross-roads on the ridge north of Shalbourne church shows : — Feet. ' 6. Lumpy to nodular white chalk, with undulate marly partings. Flints mostly small and scattered : a thin tabular seam near the top. Inoceramus cuvieri, J de C. Sow. ; I. of. mytiloides, Mant. ; Terebratula carnea, J. Sow. ; T. semiglo- bosa, J. Sow. ; Micraster prcecursor, Rowe ; Plo- coscyphia convoluta, T. Smith - about 13 Zone of -5. Chalk rock ; massive near the top, nodular below, Holaster I and containing several layers of green-coated planus. nodules. Inocerainus sp. ; Spondylus spinosus, J. Sow. ; Tere- bratula carnea ; T. semiglobosa ; Ventriculites spp. about 12 4. Nodular chalk, becoming more homogeneous to- wards the base. Inoceramus sp. ; Spondylus spinosus ; Terebratula carnea- ..... g^j^Q^^ ^ MICUASTEE ZONE". ^1 Feet. . Thin seam of grey laminated marl, passing down into greyish flaggy chalk about J . Coarse, greyish, nodular chalk, with thin flaggy bands and scattered small, brown, subangular concretions. A thin marl-seam at the base. Tnoceramv,sci.mytiloides,Ma,nt.; Terebratulina gra- cilis var. lata, Eth. (rare) ; Plocoscyphia convoluta Zone of . 1, . about 7 Terebratulina ^- Grreyisn white lumpy chalk, passing down into white flaggy and blocky chalk, with thin tabular and scattered nodular flints. An irregular band with scattered green-coated nodules and ferruginous concretions at the top. Ammonite, a cast about one foot in diameter — pos- sibly of a senile example oi Pachydiscus xieramplus (Mant.) ; Inoceramus spp. ; Ostrea sp. : Terebra- tulina gracilis var. lata : Asteroidea ; Porosj^hcera globularis (PhilL). exposed about 16 The beds dip northward, at about 22°. Their thickness cannot be exactly measured, as the face of the working is irregular and much obscured by talus. The examples of Micraster prcecursor found by the writer in bed (6) occurred between IJ and 7 feet above the top of the Chalk Kock. They are all of II. planus-zone types. Chalk Rock is seen at intervals along the ridge north of the Vale of Ham, and in the sides of sunken roads and cart-tracks on the higher part of the main escarpment between Ham Hill and Walbiiijy Camp, to the south, but there seem to be no other good exposures in this part of the district. Zone of Micraster cor-testudinarium. Very little is known about the M. cor-testudinarium-zone in the Hungerford area. Quarries are exceedingly scarce in the lower part of the zone, and exposed beds which seem, from their position, to belong to the higher part, are so poorly fossiliferous that the amount of time which the writer has been able to devote to them has proved quite inadequate for their elucidation. The difficulty in separating this zone from that of Micraster cor-anguinum, ex- perienced by those who have studied the coast sections, has still to be overcome in this district, and (it would seem) in the Southern Midlands generally. The Dods Down siding-section shows that the lumpy beds of the upper part of the H. flanus-zom pass up into a rather coarse - textured, blocky, white chalk with many horizontal and oblique seams of tabular flint, gradually giving place to a finer and softer chalk, characterised by numerous strongly -marked bands of flint-nodules, and almost certainly belonging to the M. cor-ang- uinum-zone. The thickness of the intermediate beds with many tabular flints is about 80 feet in this section, and rather less in a well-boring at Kingswood, near Lambourn. (See Appendix A.) Taking the measurements which have been obtained in other, more favourable, localities in the South of England as a guide, it is improbable tbat more than 50 or 60 feet of the beds mentioned belong to tlie M. cor -testudinariimi- zone. Mr. Jukes-Browne 22 UPPER CHALK. has provisionally assigned a thickness of 50 feet to the zone itt north Wilts, but this estimate includes from 10 to 15 feet of the lumpy beds above the Chalk Rock which are now known to be part of the Holaster planus-zone. The only fossiliferous section which has been seen by the writer is in a roadside quarry at West Compton, nearly three-quarters of a mile north-west of Compton church. It shows 17 or 18 feet of rather hard lumpy chalk with seams of tabular, and continuous nodular, flint in the lower half, and many open courses of flint nodules in the upper. Micraster prcBcursor, Rowe, with strongly inflated and subdivided areas, is fairly abundant throughout. M. cor-testudinarium (Goldf.), Holaster placenta, Ag., sponge-im- pressions, and remains of Inoceramus (referable to I. involutus, J. de C. Sow., 7. cuvieri, J. de C. Sow., /. lamarcki, Park.), are very common in the lower beds. The floor of the pit probably is about 20 feet above the Chalk Rock. A small working, in blocky beds with one conspicuous band of flint and remains of Inoceramus involutus, west of Inkpen church, may be in this zone. Zone of Micraster coe-anguinum. In this district, and in southern England generally, the M. cor- anguinum-chalk is a moderately-soft, white, and flinty chalk. In the lower beds the abundant flint-nodules are, for the most part, of rather small dimensions, and of globular and digitate forms. In many sections they seem to be thickly disseminated through their matrix, but this appearance may be due to rather wi|de spacing of the individuals in closely-superposed bands. Interstratified seams and oblique veins of the tabular variety are fairly common here. Higher up, the nodules are of greater size (from 6 to 18 inches in longest diameter), and more often arranged in regular courses, from IJ to 3 or 4 feet apart; while the tabular seams and veins, though liable to recur at all horizons, are less frequently seen. Somewhere about 20 or 30 feet below the top of the zone the nodules diminish both in size and number, the individuals becoming so widely spaced near the upper limit that their dis- position in bands or layers is scarcely recognisable in small sections. The upper beds are often fairly fossiliferous ; the lower seem to contain few megascopic remains besides the inevitable shards of Inoceramus. In several sections in the upper half of the zone in the western part of the London Basin a thin band of very hard yellow chalk, from 3 inches to 18 inches thick, and possessing a sharply-marked upper limit, has been encountered. Whether this rock-bed belongs to one, or to more than one, horizon, is doubtful. The writer is inclined to think that all the occurrences hitherto observed by him are at a single horizon, which lies about 60 or 70 feet below the upper limit of the zone. Taking the thickness of the M. cor-testudinarium-zone as 50 feet, that of the succeeding zone may be estimated at 200 to 220 feet. MICEASTER ZONES. 23 Gommencing with the sections on the north-east : There are some small exposures in the upper part of the zone in the cut- ting on the Oxford-Newbury Road at Beedon Hill. In the lower of these, near the smithy, the chalk is firm and blocky, and contains regular courses of flints. Higher up the road, close to the Eocene boundary, the rook is soft and flints scarce. Remains of Bourguelicrinus and Conulvs albogalerus, Leske [Galerites, Auott.] are fairly common in the highest beds, which must be near the top of th« zone. A small pit on the east side of the Didcot railway, at the boundary of the Reading Beds; north-west of Furze Hill, near Oare, shows about 8 feet of chalk, with pipes of sand and clay. Near the middle of the section there is a yellow rock-band, 6 inches thick, bearing a few impressions of a sponge {Coseinopora ?) and containing concretions of decomposed pyrite. The surface of the rock is uneven, and above it there are small nodules of a similar hard chalk. Bourgueticrinus, Cidaris sceptrifera, Forbes, Echinocorys, and other common forms occur in a fragmentary condition. Pits and small quarries in very poorly-fossiliferous beds with many flints occur (mostly on the sides of valleys) around Beedon, Catmore, Peasemore, and Leckhampstead. Half a mile east of Shaw church a pit by the railway exposes 15 feet of soft, white chalk with scattered grey flints. Here were obtained Inoceramus cuvieri, J. de C. Sow. ; Oatrea vesicularis. Lam. ; Bryozoa ; Asteroid ossicles ; Bourgueticrinv^ ; Cidaris davigera, Konig ; Echinocorys scutatus, Leske (ovate ioxn^;Gonvlu8(dhogalerus,'LB^o; Micraster cor-anguinum,ljeske; Plinthosdla ap. ; Poroaphoera gldbidaria (PhiJl.). Conulus occurs in a band about 6 feet from the bottom of the pit. The highest beds here are within a few feet of the upper limit of the zone. At Donnington an old pit on the west side of the Oxford road, and some excavations for water and drain-pipes in that road and in the Shaw lane, hard by, exposed a more flinty chalk, at a slightly lower horizon, containing many of the fossils above noted, with a few unimportant additions. A sample of chalk from a recently-made opening* by the new kiln at Shaw Brickyard pelded Scalpdlum maximum t (J. de C. Sow. ) and Eachara acia, d'Orb. There are two field-pits, in beds with regular flint-bands, north of Bagnor. They have yielded Micraster cor-anguinum, Cidaria davigera, Terebratida aemiglobosa, and a few other common fossils. The higher is close to the Eocene boundary. Another fleld-pit, also near the boundary of the Reading Beds, a quarlei' of a mile east of the smithy at Winterbourne, shows a few feet of flrm, blocky chalk, with rough, cavernous flints of large size, both scattered and in hori- zontal layers. The fossils found are Inoceramiia cuvieri, J. de C. Sow. ; Oatrea sp. ; Kingena lima (Defr.); Clinopora lineata, Beissel ; Eschara ap., Asteroidea ; Bourgueticrinua ; Cidaris sceptrifera, Mant. ; Echinocorys scutatus, Leske ; Micraster cor-anguinum (Leske) ; Pentacrinua sp. ; Spina pora dixoni, Lonsd. A larger pit, the same distance west of the smithy, and exposing 12 feet of rather softer chalk with smaller flint-nodules in undulate bands, yielded Inoceramua cuvieri ; Ostrea vesicularis. Lam. ; Pecten cretosus, Defr. ; Kingena lima (Defr,); Rhynchonella pUcatilis (J. Sow.); Terehratulina siriafa (Wahl. ) ; Olauaa francqana (d'Orb.) ; Vincularia sp. ; Cidaria davigera. Konig ; C. hirudo, Sorig. ; C. perornata, Forbes ; C. sceptrifera, Mant. ; Cyphoaoma koenigi (Mant.) ; Echinocorys scutatus, Leske (large ovate form) ; Conulus albogolerus, Leske ; Micraster cor-anguinum (Leske) ; Pseudodiadema ♦Situated a little to the south-west of, and at a lower level than, the old pits showing the junction of the {Uintacrinus) Chalk and the Reading Beds. ^4 UPPEK CHAtfe. (Helicodiadema) fragile, Wilt.; Serpula plana, S. Woodw. ; PorsophcerA globularis (Pbill.) ; RamuUna aculeata, d'Oih. A little pit one furlong west of Wyfield Farm, and about 25 feet below the Eocenes, shows 8 feet of rather soft, white chalk with one seam of tabular flint possessing an inclination of 5°, north-eastward. Fossils are very scarce and unimportant, but the beds here are known to lie close to the top of the zone, for Uintacrinus occurs at the Beading boundary a little to the south. Small cylindrical pipes of green sand with pieces of tabular flint traverse the section from top to bottom. The fossils observed were Ino- ceramus (bits) ; Ostrea (bits) ; Vincularia disparilis ? d'Orb. ; Asteroidea ; Bourgueticrinus ; Nodosaria zippei, Reuss ; Textularia sp. A little very flinty chalk is shown at the boundary of the Reading sands south-west of Bussook, near Winterboume. At a lower level, a small pit shows 3 feet of similar chalk with a hard yellow band, 2 to 3 inches wide, containing remains of Terehratvla semigldbosa (an unusually-large form) and Inoceramus, and some concretions of iron peroxide. Above this hard layer, which closely resembles the rock-band noticed near Oare, a test of Echinocorys scutatus (ovate form) was observed. East of Woodspeen, in an old pit on the Newbury-Lambourn road, lower beds, full of carious flints, are seen. A small sample of flint meal collected here contained a spine of Cidaris hirudo, and minute brachial ossicles of a Crinoid, probably Bourgueticrinus. A flint cast of Echinocorys scutatus (ovate) also was noted. At Boxford, a large, but now little -worked, quarry, rather less than .a quarter of a mile north of the village, on the Leckhamp- stead road, shows the following- abnormal section of beds in the upper half of the zone : — Feet. 4. Soft to very hard yellowish- white chalk, having a lumpy appearance on weathered surfaces, and containing a few flints in the lower part. The harder portions of this chalk occur in ill-defined bands, and in elongate bodies or " pockets " at various angles to the bedding planes. The softer are distinctly phosphatic, the wash-residues ', being rich in brown polished coprolites, phosphatic casts of Globi- gerina, Textvlaria, and other Foraminifera, and a variety of organic debris of doubtful origin. Brown phosphatic, and hght or dull green glauconitic concretions, of angular form (up to J inch in diameter) are very abundant in places. Many oyster shells. About 10 3. Firm, harsh, irregularly- jointed white chalk, with one distinct band of nodular, and a few seams of tabular flint, near the middle. Samples from the lower part of this bed were found to be full of Asteroid-ossicles, fragments of Inaceramus, and broken Cidaris- plates. A thin seam of grey rubbly marl at the base - about 14 2. Yellow, rocky chalk, minutely banded vrith iron stains, and con- taining green concretions (mostly angiilar). The top of this hard band is even and clearly defined, and bears in places a very thin brown glaze. From it descend borings filled either with the marl from above, or with soft chalk containing phosphatised materials like those in bed (4) ... i_2J 1 . Soft, white, blocky chalk, passing up into the above rock. There is one prominent band of big flint nodules (studded with Asteroid- ossicles, plates of Cidaris, etc.) about 5 feet down. Smaller scattered, finger-shaped and globular flints also occur - 7 The beds have the (for this part of the district) remarkably high dip of 23° to 25°, to the south-south-east. M1C!RAS*ER 2;6NEg. 55 Most of the following fossils from this pit were obtained in the phosphatic chalk at the top (bed 4). Lamna appendiculata (Ag.) Vincularia sp. Exogyra sigmoidea, Rev^s — bed 4 Bairdia subdeltoidea (Milnst.) only. Cytherella ovata (Bomer) Inoceramus cuvieri, J, de C. Sow. Serpula granulata, J. de C. Sow. Ostrea hippopodium, Nilss. — bed 4 plana, 8. Woodw. only. Cidaris clavigera, Kiinig — bed 1 only. Ostrea cf. lateralis var. striata, hifudo, Sorig. Nilss. — bed 4 only. peromata, Forbes Pecten cretosus, Defr. sceptrifera, Mant. Teredo amphisbasna {Ooldf.) Echinooorys soutatus, Leske (ovate Kingena lima {Defr.) form.) Terebratula carnea, J. Sow. Helicodiadema fragile (Wilt) Terebratulina striata (IFaW.) Mcraster cor-anguinum {Leake) — Berenicea polystoma (Bomer) beds 1, 3, 4, Crisina cenomana, d'Orb. Asteroidea Idmonea alipes, Gregory Bourgueticrinus Proboscina angustata, d'Orb. Pentaerinus Stomatopora gracilis (M.-Edw.) Spinopora dizoni, Lonsd. granulata (M.-Edw.) Porospli8Braglobularis(i'A»7Z.) Tervia sub-graotlis (d'Orb. ) P. patelliformis, Hinde Membranipora sp. PlinthoseUa squamosa, Zittel. Hard chalks, like those seen in the above section, are traceable in the soil for 300 or 400 yards southward and north-eastward from the pit, along the eastern side of the Boxf ord-Leckhampstead road (Hangmanstone Lane) ; and other phosphatic beds, lower in the M. cor-angumum-zon&, are known to exist beneath the cultivated ground on the western side of that road, at about one- third of a mile north-north-east of Boxford church. East of Westbrook Farm, there is a small pit in very flinty, poorly- fossiliferous chalk at a still lower horizon. The south - south-eastward dip, of 5° or 6°, noticeable here most probably is due to the same disturbance as that responsible for the much higher dip of the beds in the Boxford quarry just described. This remarkable flexure is thought to be of pre-Tertiary (or, at least, of pre -Reading) date, for while the Lower Eocene strata of the Borough HUl outlier, which extends athwart its inferred course, are not visibly affected by it, higher zones of the Chalk are locally intercalated between those strata and the M. cor-angumum-heds — as will be shown in the next chapter. By the side of the main road, a little north- west of East Shefford church, a small pit exhibits 5 feet of white chalk (probably in the lower half of the zone) with a thin marl band at the top. The same marl band passes through the middle of a quarry in barren chalk with regular courses of tabular and nodular flint, a little west of the smithy at West Shefford. There are many small sections of the higher beds on the broad spur between the Lambourn and the Kennet. A field-pit near Wickham Kiln, and half a mile north-west of Sole Farm, shows 15 feet of rather soft, white, closely jointed chalk, with a few layers of nodular flints, capped by the green-sand " Bottom-bed " of the Beading Series. A few hundred yards to the south- east of this pit a road-side quarry exposes 18 feet of a like chalk, but with rather fewer flints. From these excavations the following remains have been collected : — Fish scales ; Inoceramus cuvieri, J. de C. Sow. j Kingena 26 UPPER CHALK. (Defr.) ; Rhynchondla flicatilis (J. Sow.) ; Bryozoa ; Asteroidea ; Bourgiieticrinus ; Oidaris davigera, Konig ; G. perornata, Forbes ; C. sceptrifera, Mant. ; Gonvlus aJbogolenis, Leske ; Micraster cor-anguinum (Leske); PsevAodiadema (Helicodiadema) fragile. Wilt. ; Porosphcera globvlaris (Phill.); P. patelliformis, Hinde ; P. pUeoliis, Lam.; P. sjj. (branching form) ; Plocoscyphia sp. Cormlus and Kingena lima are common in both pits. From the second pit many hundreds of small Crinoid and Asteroid ossicles were obtained, some examples of the former being referred to Bourgueticrinus by Dr. A. W. Rowe. The chalk above described evidently belongs to the highest part of the M. cor-anguinum zone. Lower beds, with large, carious flints and many remains of Cidaris sceptri- fera, 0. perornata and Inoceramus, are exposed in a copse about two-thirds of a mile north-east of Wiokham Church. By the side of the Roman Road, a quarter of a mile north-west of Nicnocks, a little harsh chalk with violet- banded flints is seen ; and hard, yellowish chalk, with Parasmilia centralis and hollow casts of sponge-spicules, appears in a hedge-bank half a mile south-west of Wickham Church. Nine feet of soft chalk, with many very small and a few larger flint-nodules, and two marked veins of tabular flint, is exposed in a field-pit of considerable size, half a mile north-west of Bradford Farm (on the Bath Road). Fossils are fairly abundant in the upper third of the section, and the majority of the following were obtained from beds in that position: — Inoceramus cuvieri, J. de C. Sow. ; Ostrea vesicularis. Lam. ; 0. wegmanniana, d'Orb. ; Pecten cretosus, Defr. ; Spondylus latus (J. Sow.) ; Kingena lima (Defr.) ; Rhynchondla plicatilis (J. Sow.) ; R. reedensis, Eth. ; Asteroidea ; Bourgueticrinus ; Echinocorys scutatus, Leske (ovate and acutely-pyramidate forms) ; Micraster cor-anguinum (Leske) ; Plinthosdla squamosa, Zitt. ; Porosphcera glohularis (Phill.) ; Coscinopora quincuncialis (T. Smith). Most of these are common, the oysters particularly so. The occurrence of the pyra- midate form of Echinocorys characteristic of the Marsupites-zone, and the character of the chalk, suggest that the lower limit of that zone is close at hand. The top of the pit appears to be about 30 feet below the base of the Reading Beds, which come on-close by, to the east. In the bottom of the dry valley near Clapton, and three furlongs west of Elcot Lower Farm, a small pit in flinty beds has yielded Micraster cor- anguinum, Conulus albogolerus, s. tooth and scales of small fish, and other fossils. This is about 50 feet below the neighbouring Eocene outliers. The very flinty beds lower in the zone are well exposed in a quarry at the cross roads half a mile north-east of Lye Farm in Lambourn Woodlands (or King's Heath) ; in three pits in Old Hayward Bottom, north of Straight Soley ; in road-banks on Coppington Down, and in several places on the north side of the Bath Road, near Avington. In a quarry a quarter of a mile north of Denford Farm the flints are ex- tremely numerous, the nodules in some bands being agglutinated so as to form nearly-continuous floors. The chalk here dips gently north or north- westward, and shows a small fault with a throw of about 3 feet to the south- west. Beds which seem to be low in the zone are exposed to the north of Knighton, and fully 60 feet of them must be exposed in the road-cutting on White Hilli at the north-western comer of Bamsbury Manor Park. In the latter section horizontal seams of tabular flint are exceptionally abundant in the lowest beds, which may belong to the M. cor-testudinarium-zone. Fossils are, as usual, very scarce at this low horizon, and a brief inspection did not discover anything of interest. There are other sections near Stock Close Farm, two mUes north of Axford. On the south side of the Kennet, a dirty section of sparingly- fossiliferous beds high in the zone is seen at the watercress beds west of Kintbury ; and lower beds, containing a large number iWlCRASTER ZONES. 27 of thin-shelled globular flints, are laid bare in the side of the Station yard at Hungerford. Chalk with many carious flints occurs in the railway-cutting near the Barracks, one mile west of Hungerford. From the meal in the flints at this spot, and from that in the globular flints at Hungerford Station, Mr. LI. Treacher has obtained : — Dimyodon nilssoni {Hag.) [Plicatula Micropora hippoorepis ? Goldf. sigillina, S. P. Woodw.'\ Tei-ebratulina striata {WaM.) Reptomultisparsa sp. Berenicea polystoma {Romer) Stomatopora granulata, Edw. Clausa franoqana (d'O/b.) Vinoularia sp. Crisina unipora, d'Orb. Cidaris hirudo, Sorig. Bntalophora raripora, d'Orb. Serpula granulata, J. de 0. Sow. Esohara lamarcki, Hag. — — turbinella, J. de O. Sow. Entalophora virgula, Hag. Spinopora dixoni, Lonsd. Membranipora elliptica, Beiiss Porosphsera patelliformis, Hinde. Nodelea durobrivensis, Qreg. Chalk with many layers of nodular flint has been worked in a large quarry at Furze Hill, Chilton Eohat, and a very irregular junction of the higher (but not the highest) beds of the zone with the Reading Beds is visible at the kiln in Brick Kiln Copse, a little further to the south. No fossils of in- terest were found in the pinnacles of dirty chalk which rise into the Eocene sands and clays. On the west side of the cart-track leading from the kiln to the Bath Road near Hop Grass Earm beds probably 20 or 30 feet lower in the zone are worked in a vertical shaft, ynXh lateral galleries or headings. Here the workmen collect the larger fossils, and Mr. Treacher obtained from them some good specimens of Echinocorys scutatus, varying much in shape, but all referable to the ovate variety. S'pondylus spinosus, spines of Cidaris, and ossicles of Asteroids are fairly common. A six-inch band of hard yellow chalk is seen in the lower part of the shaft, about 15 feet from the top. Higher beds than those seen at Brick Kiln Copse are exposed in a field- pit on the eastern side of Littlecote Park Farm. The chalk is rather soft and blooky, and contains small, scattered, flint-nodules with pale violet bands. Fossils, including Convive albogolerus and lAma hoperi, are fairly common, the forms noted being almost the same as those seen in the higher beds near Wiokham. One side of the pit intersects a very large pipe of Eocene clay and pebbles. Disturbed and shattered iron-stained chalk with carious flints has been worked by the side of the Bedwyn road at Proxfield ; and a smaU section of much-jointed, rubbly chalk with few flints occurs in the hollow lane three furlongs west-north-west of Little Bedwyn church. Among the fossils noticed in the latter pit was Micraster cor-anguinum var. latior, Rowe. A somewhat barren, soft, and sparingly-flinty chalk is occa- sionally exposed in the valleys north of Bedwyn Common, and farther westward, at lower levels than the pits which yield a Mar- supites-zone fauna. Harsh chalk with tabular and nodular flints, belonging either to the lowest part of the cor-anguinum-zone, or to the zone below, is seen dipping 25° north- east by Crofton Engine House ; and the cutting at Dods Down, to the south- east of this, must expose nearly three-quarters of the former subdivision, from its undetermined base upwards. Geological examination of this cutting is, unfortunately, discouraged by the owners. At the cross-roads on the ridge south-west of Shalbourne, chalk probably near the base of the zone is shown in a small quarry. The flint bands, of which there are many, indicate a dip of 20° north-westward. On the northern slope of the same ridge, three furlongs north of Shalbourne Church , some of the highest beds, with a few common fossils, are worked. 28 UPPER CHALK. CSialk with large, elongate flint-nodules and many spines of Oidaris clavigera, is well shown at Standen Manor; and a group of pits on and near the ridge-way south-east of Sadler's Farm has yielded a small but charac- teristio fauna. The rubbly chalk on the slopes of an overgrown pit half a mile south of West Woodhay House is rich in remains of Gidaris and of small Asteroids. In a large pit one-third of a mile south-south-west of Berry's Farm, near West Woodhay, the harsh chalk (probably of lower part of the zone) contains greyish, marly veins and many courses of small, mauve-coloured, solid and spongeous flints, and chips of Inoceramus. The dip there is 15" to north-east. 29 CHAPTER V. UPPER CRETACEOUS. Upper Chalk (continued). Zone op Marsupites testudinariur. The existence of this zone in the Hungerford area, though for some time suspected, has been proved only within the past jiwo years. To those whose acquaintance with the Marsupites-heis is limited to the richly-fossiliferous type-section of the Thanet cliffs it may seem almost incredible that this chalk could have escaped recognition during the earlier geological survey of the district. In the matter of organic remains, however, the Marsupites-chalk of the country around Hungerford presents a very great contrast to that seen on the Kentish coast ; and if the name-fossil is com- mon in at least two old quarries, in the majority of the sections a rather close scrutiny is required to detect any of the characteristic forms. Despite this relative scarcity of fossils, the Marsupites-zone is still one of the easiest of the zoological sub-divisions of the Chalk to identify in small exposures ; and its two sub-zones— the Marsupites-hstnd above and the Uintamnus-hand below — are as clearly recognisable here as in any other part of the country where this chalk is fully, or largely, represented. The only places at which the zone is known to attain its full development at the outcrop are Kintbury and Winterbourne. There are no complete sections, but the maximum thickness is estimated to be about 60 feet ; roughly, about half that attained in East Kent and at Salisbury. Of this amount, something like one-half may be referred to the Vintacrinus -hand. Owing, how- ever, to the very limited size of most of the existing exposures, and to the complications caused by local flexures, no trustworthy measurements can be obtained. Here, as in other parts of southern England, the Marsupites- chalk is, normally, soft, white, and of very fine texture, and may, as a rule, be distinguished by these features alone from the coarser rock of the inferior zones. The lower beds are usually widely- jointed and massive, while the higher are more often broken into small, cuboidal blocks. The few nodular flints are greyish, rather small, and generally scattered. Tabular flint, in seams and oblique veins, is rather prominent in a few sections. The Marsupites-chalk, which has not been found at the surface in the country covered by the Reading Sheet (268), to the east, emerges from beneath the Eocene Beds at Shaw, near Newbury. About 10 feet of the lowest beds, with two open courses of flint-nodules, are seen below the well-known " oyster bed " of the Beading Series in two pit? at Shaw Kiln. The topmost layers are much discoloured and hardened, 30 UPPER CHALK. but yield remains of Uintacrinus rather freely when broken up and washed- Of the following fossils obtained from these pits, those marked with an asterisk have already been recorfed by Mr. Jukes-Browne.* *Actinocamax sp. *Echinooorys scutatus, Leske Inooeramus cuvieri, J. de 0. Sow. (ovate form). *Spondylus latus (J. Sow.) var. striatus, WrigTit * spinosus (/. Sow.) (pjrramidate form). Ostrea vesicularis, Lam. *Clonulus albogalerus, Leske RhynohoneUa Hmbata {Schloth.) *Mioraster cor-anguinum (Leske) * plioatilis {J. Sow.) Cjrphosoma sp. *Terebratula semiglobosa, J. Sow. Pentagonaster megaloplax, Sladen TerebratuUna rowei, Kiichw Uintacrinus *S8rpula ampullacea, J. de C. Sow. *Parasmilia centralis {Mant.) * fluctuata, S. Wooiw. Porosphaera globularis (Phill.) Bourgueticrinus Pharetrospongia strahani, Sollas Cidaris sceptrifera, Mant. The lowest plate of Vintacrinus seen occurred about 7 feet from. the top of the Chalk, just above the lower and more definite course of flints, which may mark the approximate position of the junction of the Marsupites and Micraster cor-anguinum zones. In Benham Park, at a point about a quarter of a mile east of the house, 12 feet of soft chalk with scattered flints, capped by the Reading " Bottom Bed," is exposed in an old pit at the edge of a copse. The chalk here probably belongs to a somewhat higher horizon in the UintacrimLS-h&Tii than that at Shaw Kiln, for the name-fossil, together with a few other species, occurs sparingly throughout the exposure. The same chalk extends westward, by Benham Lodge and Nalder Hill, to Elcot, where a small pit on the west side of the hamlet and close to the boundary of the Reading Beds shows 10 or 12 feet of soft beds with a few small, thin-rinded flints. The fossils collected here are Ostrea sp. (pieces) ; Spondylus latus (J. Sow. ) ; Kingena lima (Defr. ) ; Terebratulina striata (Wahl. ) ; Eschara lamarcki (Hag.); Asteroidea ; Bourgueticrinus; Echinocorys (pieces) ; Uintacrinus ; Poros-pkcera globularis (Phill.). The Vintaorinun-ah.aXk dies out north-eastwards beneath the Eocene outlier extending from Wickham to Speen, and the sec- tions and lane-bank exposures along the boundary of the Reading Beds on the further side of the outlier all seem to be in the M. cor-anguinum-zona. Flinty chalk of the latter zone seems im- mediately to underlie the Reading Beds at Bagnor, and has been identified in a like position at many places over the upland tract to the north ; but in the spur which supports the Tertiary outlier of Borough and Basford Hills, to the west of Winterbourne, the whole of the Marsupites-zone, capped by the lower beds of the Actinocamax quadratus-zone, comes in somewhat abruptly. As a full account of what is known respecting this interesting little outlier of higher chalks is appearing elsewhere.fit will suffice *"The Cretaceous Rocks of Britain," vol. iii., 1904, p.^Os! The list there given includes Magas jmmilus, a form characteristic of the Bel mucronata-zone. Dr. T. L. Kitohin informs the writer that the specimen so deternimed (by Mr. G. Sharman) was imperfect, and has not been pre- served. ^ It IS more likely to have been Kingena lima (Defr.). Prof. Rupert Jones' "Lecture on the Geological History of the Vicinity of Newbury" (London, 1854) contains a Hst of 20 Upper Chalk fossils, only one of which [Nodosaria zippei, "from Speen") is located. t " The Phosphate Cialks of Wiiterbourne and Boxford (Berkshire) " by H. J. 0. White and LI. Treacher. Q.J.O.S., vol. Ixii. 1906, pp. 499-521. M4IISUPITES ZONE. 3] here to summarize the evidence, as to the character and topographic position of the constituent beds, which has been derived from numerous small surface-exposures on the fields, and to give details of the single clear section alone. Soft, white, sparingly-flinty chalk, with a very small proportion of phosphatic matter (coprolites, fish bones, etc.), and remains of JJirttaarinus, Kingena lima, and Bryozoa, is exposed on either side of the Boxford-Winterbouxne road, at about one furlong to the east of Boxford Rectory, and 30 to 40 feet lower than the base of the Reading Beds in Hour (or Hoar) Hill, to the south. Chalk with the same fossils is found one-third of a mile farther east, near the cottages (named " Iremonger's " on some maps) where that road crosses the boundary of the Reading Beds of Basford Hill ; and its outcrop has been traced thence, north- ward, across the western slope of the Borough Hill spur to Wyfield Farm ; and from that farm, south-eastward, nearly to Winter- bourne Church. Now, at, or a little to the south-east of, the cottages on the Box- ford- Winterbourne road, just mentioned, and again at Wyfield Farm, three-quarters of a mile to the north, this lower division of the Ma/rswpites-zonQ is in contact with the Reading Beds, but in the intervening ground a group of soft to very hard phosphatic chalks, containing Marswpites, Actinocamax granulatus, and Ojfaster pUlida, occurs between them, and outcrops, in a some- what irregular manner, on both sides of the Borough Hill ridge, to the south-west and south-east of the Camp. These distinctly- phosphatic beds, overlying the feebly-phos- phatic to normal chalk of the UintaGrinus-ha.nd, seem to have a maximum thickness of 35 to 40 feet at their outcrop ; they con- tain a few scattered flints which frequently bear the impress of fossils,* and they include at least one band of chalk so rich in Actinocamax granulatus that the guards of that belemnoid can easily be found in the soil on their basset surface, in certain places. Their harder beds abound in rustj; casts of ST^ongQa {Ventriculites and Coscinopora), which also are very noticeable in the surface rubble, after rain. On the western side of Borough Hill the slope is rather steep, and the bo\indary of the 'post-Vintacrinus chalks seldom lies more than 200 or 300 feet from that of the Lower Eocene strata. On the eastern side, where the inclination of the ground is gentler and more or less in the direction of the general dip, the phosphatic beds have a wider range at the surface, and remains of Marsu- pites, with some other fossils, were found in a trial-hole about * Flint casts of Echinocorys scutatus, Micraster cor-anguinum, Spondylus latus, and BhyncJionella plicatilis have been found in the soil or drift over the Chalk around Borough Hill. A cast of a Pecten (which Mr. H. A. AUen believes to be P. mantdlianns, d'Orb.) picked up on Borough Hill, and possibly derived from the same source, is in the Museum of Practical Geology. 32 UPPER CHALK. 300 yards to the east of Lower Farm, and a quarter of a mile dis- tant from the Eocene border. The only clear section of the Ma/rsv/pUes a.nAAcl. quadrcUus 2 ones to be found in this neighbourhood occurs in a small field-pit, about 150 yards to the south-west of Lower Farm, and a quarter of a mile north-west of Winterbourne church. It shows : — Zone of Actinocamax quadratus. Zone of Marsupites testvdinarius (Marsupites- band.) Feet S andy loam, with flint-nodules and angolar flints, resting unevenly on — , 5. White to greyish-white chalk with black specks ; closely jointed and flaggy ; harsh to the touch ; becomes harder and coarser towards the base, where it contains greenish nodules with brown coats, small subangular and rounded brown phosphatic concretions, and many fossils. Corax, Lamna, Oxyrhina, Actinocamax granidatus. Act. quadratus ?, Echinocorys scutatns, Offaster 'pillvla, etc. 4. Band of hard, nodular, blooky chalk, of pale greenish-yellow and cream tints, and spotted with dendrites of manganese oxide : contains many angular and rounded phosphatic concretions, and glazed brown nodules which are commonly greenish - white within. The upper surface of this rook is rugged and bears a thin, brown, sHghtly-glossy crust of phosphate, within and upon which are many adnate valves of Ostrea, Spondylus, and Dimyodon. Passes down into bed below. Lamna, Actinocamax granidatus, Echinocorys scutatus, Offaster pillula (rare) ; Ventriculites, etc. hi 3. Firm to soft, gritty, friable, white to grejnsh chalk ; jointed into blocks of medium to rather large size (3 to 12 inches) ; and containing scattered brown phosphatic nodules and smaller angular concretions, which become more numerous to- wards the base. Surface often rough with oyster and Inoceramus shells. Lamna, Corax, Oxyrhina, Actinocamax granulatv^. Act. verus, Echinocorys scutatus, Marsupites (in lower half of bed) ; Micraster cor-anguinum, etc. - 4f 2. Band of hard, lumpy or nodular yellowish to greenish-yeUow chalk, with many brown nodules and concretions. Top and bottom iU-defined. Marsupites, Ventriculites, etc. J-J 1. Friable, harsh, white to pale brownish-grey chalk with harder lumps, and vague branching borings filled with coarser chalk of darker tint. Small, scattered, brown nodules and concretions. Lamna, Marsupites, etc., seen for - 8^ The names, distribution, and frequency of the fossils found here are given or indicated in the subjoined table, where marsupites zone. 33 ( X ) stands for observed occurrence ; (c) for common ; and (V c) very common. Nos. of Beds. 1 2 3 4 5 Corax falcatus, Ag. ■ X ■^ pristodontus, Ag. X X Lamna appendiculata, Ag. c c c Oxyrhina mantelli, Ag. - X X Actinocamax granulatus {Blainv.) X c vc quadratus ? (J)efr.) X verus, Miller X Inoceramus cuvieri, J. de G. Sow. - c c vc c c Lima hoperi (Mamt.) X Ostrea hippopodium, Iifilss. X X c normaniana, d'Orb. X vesicularis, Ldm. c u vc c c wegmanniana, d'Orb. c X c X c Pecten cretosus, Defr. X c Dimyodon nilssoni (Hag.) X c vc Spondylus latus {J. Sow.) c X c spinosus 1 (J. Soiv.) - c X Teredo ampMsbsena (ffoldf.) X Kingena lima (Defr.) X Rhynchonella plicatilis (J. Soto.) X X X reedensiSfllth. X Terebratulina striata (JVahl.) Bathocy_pris silicula, Jones X X Cythereis ornatissima (Seuss) X X X Cytherella muensteri (Romer) - X ovata (Romer) X X williamsoniana, Jones X X Paracypris siliqua, J. & H. Cidaris sceptrifera, Mdmt. - Helicodiacfema fragile ( Wilt.) X X X Ecliinocorys scutatus, Leshe, ovate forms - c vc - — — — pyramidate forms- % c c vc Micraster cor-anguinum (Leske) X c X (rostrate form) c X Offaster pillula (Lam.) X c Asteroidea X X X Bourgueticrinus X X Marsupites testudinarius (ScMoth.) c X X Parasmilia centralis (Mant.) - X Porosphsera globularis (Phill.) - X X X patelliformis, Hinde X X X sp._- _ - X X Coscinopora quincuncialis (T. Smith) X X Ventriculites mfundibuliformis, S. Woodw. X radiatus, Mamt. X Serpula sp. X Apart from the nodules and concretions, all the beds are decidedly phos- phatic, the phosphate occurring mainly in amber and flesh-coloured chips of teeth, bones, and scales of fish ; in polished, hght to dark brown casts of Textidaria, Cristdlaria, Olobigerina, BoUdia and other Foraminifera ; in little ovoid coprolites ; in minute sub-angular lumps and plates, which look Uke fragments of ojrster and other shells ; and in very small brown granules (probably concretions). Under the microscope, the bulky wash-residues 9114. D 34 UPPER CHALK. of the softer chalks much resemble those of the beds in the upper part of the quarry at Taplow Court (Bucks), though the proportion of phosphatoed material is nowhere so great as m the brown bands of that section. When treated with hydrochloric acid a variable, but usually smaU, proportion of the brown casts of roraminifera (especially those of GloUgerina) and minute concretions are found to consist of a green opaque, or translucent, mineral— presumably glauconite— thinly coated with phosphate. These disguised glauconitio casts and granules are most common in the residues of bed (5). They occur in all the phosphatic chalks in the vicinity of Winterbourne and Boxford, as well as in those of Taplow and Lewes. In this section phosphatic material is most in evidence near the top of bed (1), where pla.tes of Marsupites are commonest. Grains of quartz— rarely over 0-5 milli- metre in diameter— are rather prominent in the residues of samples from the lower part of bed (5). Actinocamax granidatus. and Echimcorys scutatus are very abundant m bed (5) ; the majority of the examples noticed lying upon, or within 3 inches above, the uneven, Ostrea- and S-pcmdylus-encYostfiA. surface of the rock- band (4), below. The guards of the former species there are more strongly granulated, and have deeper and more quadrate alveoli, than those in bed (3). The contrast presented by the tests of Echinocorys scutatus from different parts of the section is striking. In bed (3), nearly aU are of the slightly blunted pj?ramidate or angulate form, and medium size, usually met with in the higher part of the Marsupites-zone in Berks and North WUts. In beds (4) and (5) this variety is replaced by stunted pyramidate and depressed ovate forms which approach, but are yet easily distinguishable from, the commoner shape-variations in the lower part of the Act. quadrafus-zone at Kintbury(«ee below, pp. 40, 41), 5 miles distant, where the mineralogical con- ditions are normal. The chalk seen in this section must have been formed under much the came conditions as the more richly phosphatic deposits of Taplow, and at about the same time as the higher beds in the quarry at Taplow Court. Here, as there, and at many localities in the north of !Franoe, the phosphatic chalk is accompanied by nodular and rocky bands, and characterised by a profusion of fish remains, belemnoids, echinoids, and oysters ; wiile the evidences of a zonal concentration similar to that observed in the Bucking- hamshire and French sections are seen in the small thickness (less than 3 feet) of the beds which separate the chalk with Marsupites from that with Offaster pillvla, and in the marked change in the form of Echinocorys scutatus which takes place within those beds. The phosphatic chalks of the zones of Marsupites and Ad. quadratus around and beneath Borough Hill clearly lie in a structural depression which already existed when the Eeading Beds were laid down. The development of phosphatic and of hard beds, indicative of slow and interrupted sedimentation, in the M. cor- anguinum-zona near Boxford (see above, pp. 2'i-25) suggests that this depression is an original, or inherent, feature of. the Chali:, due to local attenuation of that zone. There are, however, some grounds for the belief that the disturbance causing the pronounced south- south-eastward dip noticed on the quarries of Boxford and West- brook (p. 25) is chiefly responsible for the basin in which the newer chalks were preserved from early Eocene erosion. The maximum thicknesses of the Marsupites-zone and of the beds referable to the Act. quad/ratus-zone, in the Winterbourne outlier, are estimated at 40 and 20 feet respectively. South of the Kennet, chalk with Marsupites makes its first appear- MARSUPlTES ZONE. '35 ance in the inlier of Hampstead Marshall. Some old workings in the bottom of the valley running from the village north-east' wards to the Kennet show 10 feet of rather lumpy, hard and soft, ironstained chalk containing a few flints. Marswpites, Rhyri' chondla plicatUis, Echinocorys sotttatus (rather large pyramidate forms), and other fossils are present. Remains of the characteristic crinoid are seen again at the top of a degraded pit on the south-western slope of Irish Hill, and in another section, at the Eocene boundary, a little west of Kiatbury Holt Farm. In the latter ex- posure the plates of Marswpites are so abundant as to attract attention at a casual inspection. Osirea vesicidaris and Echinocorys scutatus (pjrramidate form) also are very common, and Porosphosra gldbvlaris attains a greater size (18 mm.) than in any other section seen in the district. West of Kintbury Holt Farm, the lower part of the zone of Act. quadratus is intercalated between the Eocenes and the Marsupites-ha,nd, and the out- crop of the latter curves northward through the higher part of the village of Kintbury, where the characteristic fossil has been found in rubbly ex- posures at the back of the cottages on the south side of the Newbury road. The Uintacrinus-ha.nd rises from the Kennet Alluvium below Irish Hill and is well exposed in the quarry at Kintbury Mill, east of the church. The section here is about 30 feet in height and shows soft white chalk, massive below and closely jointed above, with two well-marked layers, and some oblique veins, of tabular flint, and a few open bands of flint-nodules. The fossils obtained are :— Actinooamax verus, MiUer Micraster cor-anguinum {Leshe) Inooeramus cuvieri, J. de G. Sow. Oreaster(Pentaoeros)bulbiferus, J'cw6&s Ostrea vesicularis. Lam. Pentagonaster megaloplax, Sladen, and sp. other Asteroidea. Pecten cretosus, Defr. Uintaorinus Bourgueticrinus Porosphsera globularis [Phill.) CSdaris hirudo, Sorig. patelUformis, Hinde clavigera, Konig pileolus (Lam.) Echinocorys scutatus, Leslce (pyramidate) With the exception of Porosphcera globularis all the above forms are scarce. Vintacrinvs is least rare in a band from 3 to 12 feet above the lowest part of the quarry-floor. The beds seem to dip very sUghtly to the south-west. A small field-pit half a mile south-south-west of Kintbury chiurch has yielded, as a result of prolonged search, Actinocamax granidatus (Blainv.) ; Inoccramus cuvieri, J. de C. Sow. ; Ostrea vesicularis, Lam. ; Crania parisiensis, Defr. ; Kingena lima (Defr.) ; Mhynchondla fticatUis (J. Sow.) ; Echinocorys scutatus, Leske (one poor example of a form between ovate and pyramidate) ; Micraster cor-anguinum (Leske) ; Porosphcera globularis (Phill.) The specimens of Act. granvlaiu^ are but feebly granulated. The chalk here probably belongs to the highest part of tiie Marsupites-h&TxA, i.e., to the same horizon as bed (3) in. the Winterbourne (phosphatic chalk) section (see p. 32). At a quarter of a mile west of Inglewood House a recently re-opened pit in the park exposes a few feet of ?7imtocn?ww-chalk, extremely rich in remains of the name-crinoid. A very barren portion of the same sub-zone is shown by the roadside three furlongs south-east of Cold Harbour ; and a few inches of rubbly chalk with Marsupites can be seen in the pastures at a point about the same distance south-west of Templeton. A good, though rather dirty, section in the Marsupites-ha.nd occurs a Uttle to the north of Anville's Farm, in an old working between 20 and 25 feet deep. As a whole, the chalk is soft and blocky, but there are some regular 9114. D 2 36 UPPER CHALK. bands, a few inches wide, in wMoli the rook is minutely shattered. The scattered flints are mostly smaU and globular. Marsupites, Asteroid-ossicles, stout pieces of Inoceramus, Echinocorys scutatus (pyramidate), a,nd myn- chondla vlicatiUs are the commonest fossils ; Echinocorys ocourrmg m a definite band or seam near the middle of the section. The Readmg Beds come on close by to the south, a few feet above the top of the pit, and, as Marsupites is present throughout the exposure, it is evident that there is little or no room for any of the quadratus-ciia\k at this spot. Marsupites is found in an ahnost-flintless chalk at the Eocene boundary by Slope End, on the eastern side of the Hungerford-Shalbourne road. Here the northern outcrop of the zone is deeply indented by the Shalbourne valley (not the Vale of Ham, to which that name is sometimes apphed) and the Marsupites-hand is probably completely intersected, though the Uintacrinus-heds pass beneath the stream. On the western side of the Shalbourne there is a little excavation La ironstained chalk, yielding plates of Marsupites, by the mill, north-west of Slope End. This also is close to the boundary of the Reading Beds ; but a shallow working at the north-western end of Long Walk, in Stype Copse ; another on the western edge of that copse, and two more on the northern edge of Burridge Heath near Little Bedwyn — all in the same position with reference to the Eocenes — have proved to be in the Uintacrinus-ha,nd. Along the line just indicated the upper division of the Marsupites- zone, if present, can be only a few feet thick. Its non-occurrence beneath the Tertiaries at the north-western end of Stype Copse is practically certain. Chalk with Uintacrirms is again exposed by the roadside half a mile west- north-west of Harding Farm, and in two places on the south-eastern bank of the canal, south-west of Great Bedwyn ; while the MarsupHes-heds may be seen at PoUy Farm ; by the Brickyard south-west of Foxbury Wood, and in shallow pits north and east of Brail Farm. A clean junction of the latter with the Reading Beds is visible on the eastern side of Castle Copse, and there are other Uttle exposures on the east side of Bedwyn Brail, to the south of this. The above-mentioned pits have yielded a characteristic fauna, including the unnamed species of Bourgiieticrinus with a nipple-shaped calyx, and Pollicipes glaber, Roem. ; both rare fossils in this district. The zone is almost, if not quite, intersected by the Bedwyn Valley. Its lowest beds may pass beneath the canal between the first and third locks south-west of Bedwyn. On the further side of the valley, in the road cutting down the southern slope of Chisbury Hill, remains of Marsupites and of other organisms abound in the peouhar breccia, or rubble, which occurs at the base of the Reading Beds in this neighbourhood, and is described below (p. 38). JJirUacrinus-chaik is well seen in a quarry by the eastern side of London Ride on the southern slope of Upper Horse Hall Hill, and there are two fairly-fossiUferous pits in Marsupites-heda near the 500-foot contour in the valley to the south ; one of them rather more than a quarter of a mile west of Stock Farm, the other half a mile south of Chisbury Lane Farm. A few very small exposures of the lower division of the zone occur in Tottenham Park, north of Durley ; and a little farther westward the western hmit of this chalk in the London Basin is reached. Owing to the high dip of the rocks in the ridge between Durley and Inkpen the southern outcrop-surface of the Marsupites-zone in this district is very narrow, and its beds are to be seen only in such rare excavations as lie within a few hundred feet of the Eocene boundary. In a pit near the reservoir south of Savernake (or MARSUPITES ZONE. 37 Tottenham) House, and in another on the south side of the Roman Road at a point half a mile north-west of Crofton, plates of Mar- supites are fairly common, and rather above the average size. At the former spot Mr. Treacher obtained a specimen of Ad- inocamax granidatus. A little soft chalk, which may be of the same age, is seen by HiU Bam, at the southern end of the Bedwyn Brail ; and Marsupites occurs in the rubble marking the site of an old pit three furlongs north-west of Shalboume church. In the yard at Prosperous Farm an old working shows about 20 feet of soft white chalk with fine greyish venules and a few irregularly-shaped flints, dipping at 27° to the north. Fossils are rather scarce, but in the middle beds plates of Vintacrinus occur in a seam about 6 inches thick. An extremely barren chalk (referred to this zone on the evidence of a single, stout, brachial-ossicle of a crinoid — probably Vintacrinus — supplemented by the lithological character of the rock) has been worked on. the 500-foot contour a quarter of a mile north-west of Upper Green, Inkpen. Eschara danae, d'Orb., and remains of Uintacriniis have been found in an overgrown pit south-west of Kirby House. Roach, or Bedwyn Stone. — In the vicinity of the Bedwyn Valley, between Chisbury Hill and Bloxham Copse on the north-west, and between Little Bedwjm and Dod's Down on the south-east, the chalk of the Marsupites-hand, at or near its contact with the Read- ing Beds, has been converted into an exceedingly tough, compact, white or yellowish limestone, with a conchoidal fracture. The rock contains a few small greyish flint-nodules, occasional seams of clear calcite, and some brown, crystalline-granular, branching bodies — possibly infilled borings. Fossils of megascopic size are rare, but portions of guards of ActinocUmax (probably A. granvlatus) have been obtained from it at Bloxham Copse, and on the spur to the south-east of Great Bedwyn. Mr. Jukes-Browne has been so good as to contribute the following note on the microscopic character of the Stone : — " I have examined four slides of this rock, all from the same locahty (Blox- ham Copse, S.W. of Bedwyn), and they all show the same structure. "Under a one-inch objective the rock is seen to be a chalk consisting mainly of a fine calcareous matrix which under this power seems to be amorphous. In this matrix are scattered many small Foraminifera and shell-fragments, with a few single calcareous ' spheres ' and a few sponge-spicules. "The Foraminifera include Globigerina, Textvlaria, Nodosaria, and Rotcdia, but many are broken and there are many small semi-circular fragments which are probably broken cells of these and other genera. AU the more perfect tests are fiUed with crystalline calcite. " The shell-fragments are chiefly single prisnis of Inoceramus-she]!, polygonal in cross-section. These are much more abundant than is usual in the Chalk above the lower part of the zone of M. cor-anguinum and they impart a special aspect to the slices of the rock which makes them differ from ordinary sections of chalk from the zone of Marsupites or from the upper part of the cor-anguinum zone ; though in other respects they resemble chalk from these horizons. " Besides /raocerawiHS-prisms there are occasional fragments of thin, slightly curved shells that ma^ have belonged to species of Pecten or Lima. No pieces of Bchinoderm shell occur in the slides, and no grains of inorganic origin could be detected. "Under a quarter -inch objective the matrix is seen to consist of very minute 38 UPPER OHALK. particles of oalcite, such as might be forme^d from the ultimate disintegration of Inoceramus, Poraminifera, and other shells. Under polarised light the minute interstices are seen to be filled with crystalline caloite.and it is this infiltration which has compacted the rock into a limestone. — A, J. J.-B. " Owing to the great scarcity of clear exposures of the top of the Chalk in this part of the district the stone is nowhere visible strictly in situ. Its mode of occurrence is thus described by Mr. Whitaker.* " In the neighbourhood of the Bed wins . . . there may be seen in many places, close by the junction of the Tertiary beds . . . and the Chalk, a bed which seems to be made of reconstructed chalk, and con- sists of pale-bluish and ahnost white clay (very chalky and containing pieces of chalk) overlain by a con.'used mass of pieces of hardened and somewhat flaggy chalk. This latter is locally known as 'roach' (=rock). . . " In making some deep drains down the lull slope on the south of Stoke [Stock] Farm, west of Great Bedwin, this bed was foimd close to the junc- tion of the Chalk and the Reading Beds . . . Just by the brickyard, about three- quarters of a mile east of the same village, there is much of this 'roach,' and the accompanying chalky clay, here again close by the junction of the Reading Beds with the Chalk ; ' roach ' also occurs in the fields around, just below where the former comes on above the latter. " This common occurrence of a reconstructed bed close by the junction of the two formations, and there only, naturally leads one to infer that it stretches beneath the higher of them." The blocks of stone, which have been much used for road-metal of late years, are dug in shallow pits on the faint terrace-like fea- ture marking the position of the " reconstructed bed." They are of all sizes, from 2 feet in length downwards, and the more rounded specimens superficially resemble the small blocks of sarsen which occur with them in the soU on the sides of the valley. Their surfaces are more or less deeply corroded, and often possess a hard, stalagmitic encrustation. The rock does not occur in the only clear exposure of the base of the Reading Beds (on the eastern side of the Castle Copse), nor upon the surface in the immediate vicinity of that exposure, but by Foxbury Wood, half a mile dis- tant to the north of this, it forms a coarse angular rubble, con- taindng green-coated flints, which rests directly upon, and merges iato, the normal chalk with Marsupites. In the road-cutting south of Chisbury Camp, also, the stone, in closely-set blocks em- bedded in stiff, bluish-grey clay, appears to be in contact with the Chalk ; and the writer shares Mr. Whitaker's belief that it actually passes beneath the Reading Beds. Its frequent occurrence beneath a considerable thickness of but slightly rearranged Reading clays is opposed to the idea that it is due to some hardening-process limited to the outcrop of the Chalk, and carried on pari passu with the recession of the boundary of the Eocene Beds. It is not improbable— as Mr. Whitaker, in effect, remarks— that the hard chalk yielding the blocks of " roach " had already been broken up when the lowest members of the Reading Series were 53,54 The Geology of the London Basin," Mem. Qeol. Survey, 1872, pp. MAKSTTPITES ZONE. 39 deposited. This view finds some support in the occurrence, at CMsbury, of small subangular pieces of the rock perforated in all directions by some boring organism. The uniform ap- pearance of the stone in all exposures suggests that it is derived from a definite bed in the Chalk : in view, however, of the uncon- formity which is known to exist between the Upper Cretaceous, and Lower Eocene strata in this neighbourhood it seems more likely that the stone was developed at the edges of several layers of chalk truncated by the basal plane of the Eeading Beds. In the latter case the induration of the " roach " occurred probably in early Eocene times. The writer has observed pieces of a hard chalk, having all the outward appearance of the Bedwyn Stone, at the boundary of the Reading Series near Lane End, in Buckinghamshire, where the M. cor-anguinum-heds form the Eocene platform. Zone of Actinocamax quadratus. This zone has been recognised at the surface in two small tracts of country, both, apparently, less than one square mile in area. One of these is situated on the spur between the villages of Box- ford and Winterbourne, and the only clear section to be seen there has already been described (pp. 32-34). The other Ues to the south of Kintbury. The best section in the latter area is that in a small quarry at Layland's Green, at the northern foot of Pebble Hill. As these place-names are not engraved on some editions of the one-inch Ord- nance Map, it is necessary further to define the position of the pit by stating that it lies on the western side of the road running due south from Kintbury smithy, at a point one furlong distant from that -building, and three furlongs south-east of Kintbury church. The principal lithological features of the section were noticed by the writer in a report of an excursion of the Geologists' Associa- tion to the neighbourhood in 1902.* At that date the face of the pit was much stained by rain-wash, and the very few fossils col- lected by the excursion -party included no forms diagnostic of the zone. The discovery of a small fragment of Actinocamax (doubt- fully referred to Act. granidatus), coupled with the scarcity of flints in the pit, and the kno\vn occurrence of Marswpites at Burgh- clere, seven miles distant to the south-east, however, suggested that the chalk here belonged to the Marsupites-zone ; and in his Memoir on the Upper Chalk Mr. Jukes-Browne provisionally assigned it to the lower part of that zone.| The Memoir above mentioned was published in the early part of the year 1904, when the Chalk of the Hungerford district was still (zonally speaking) all but unknown ; and subsequent examination of the section — greatly facilitated by the enlargement of the pit * Proc. Qeol. Assoc, vol. xvii., 1902, pp. 388-89. t Page 203, 40 UPPER CHALK. in the winter of 1904-5— has placed the quadratus age of the beds there exposed beyond all question. . The main or northern face of the quarry, as it appeared m June 1905, is diagrammatically shown in Figure 3. SCALE,. Horizontal. g ^ a /£ tp FEET. AH D 1/C»TICAL ' ■■. I ■ . i.l -1 ■ -J Fig. 3. Section of Actinocamax-quadratvs-ehalk at Layland's Green, Kintbury. The details are as follows : — Peet. 3. Firm, white, closely- jointed chalk containing a prominent band of large elongate flint nodules. Much piped and stained by brown clay, which penetrates into the joint-fissures .... 0-5 J 2. Hard, compact, closely- jointed, yellowish, iron-stained chalk, with rusty sponge-casts ; about 6 inches thick, and passing down into firm, white and yellowish, lumpy chalk ■ - - - \\ 1. Hard, compact, blocky, yellowish, iron-stained chalk, about I foot thick. Contains sponge casts and possesses a thin, brown, mammilated crust on upper surface. Passes downwards into a soft, white, massive chalk with scattered small soUd nodular flints, and uneven seams of rusty tabular flint near bottom of pit, exposed, about 30 On the northern face of the quarry the apparent westward dip ranges from about 2° at the eastern end to 3^° at the western. The true dip, near the western side of the excavation, appeared to be nearly 5° to the south-west. The fossils found here are : — A tooth (very small) and scales of fish. Actinocamax granulatus (Blainv.) quadratus ? (Defr.). Inoceramus cuvieri, J. d? C. Sow. sp. Ostrea lateralis var. striata, NUss. vesicularis. Lam. Pecten sp. Dimyodon nUssoni {Hag.) Spondylus latus {J. Sow.) Kingena lima (Defr.) Rhynchonella reedensis, Eih. Thecidium wetherelli, Morris Eschara lamarcki, Hag. Lepraha cf. sulcata, Beuss Membranipora sp. Asteroidea Bourgueticrinus Cidaris peromata, Forbes Echinocorys scutatus, Leske (gibbous form). (ovate form). (pyramidate form, depressed and dwarfed) Micraster cor-anguinum {Leske) Offaster piUula (Lam.) Coelosmilia granulata. Dune. — — laxa, Edw. and Haime Spinopora dixoni, Lonsd. Porosphrera globularis (PhiU.) nuoiformis, Hinde pileolus (Lam.) Coscinopora quincuncjalis (T, Smith) ACTINOCAMAX QUADRATUS ZONE. 41 The four guards of Actinocamax found (not including the frag- ment noticed in 1902) are all imperfect at the anterior end. Three of these, which show a moderately-strong granulation, have been doubtfully referred to A. quadratus by Dr. Rowe and Mr. G. C. Crick. The fourth (which though too fragile to be extracted complete could yet be measured while in situ) possessed an alveolar depth of not more than one-sixth of the length of the guard, and may therefore be assigned to A. granvlatus. Actinocamax quadratus (Def ranee) is not usually found so near the base of the zone. The above belemnoids occurred in bed (3) and in the upper part of bed (1). Off aster filluLa is most abundant in the lower part of bed (1), and was not noticed above the rocky band at the top of that division. Of the examples of Echinocorys scutatus collected, those of ovate form occurred in an impersistent seam about 12 feet below the top of bed (1) ; those of gibbous form ranged from bed (2) down to the lower part of bed (1) ; those of the form, or forms, described as pyramidate occurred in the lower part of (1) alone. Further investigation doubtless will extend the known vertical range of all these varieties here, but the association of the gibbons and pyramidate forms in the lower parts of the section is quite in accordance with observations made in the basal beds of the Act. quadratics-zone elsewhere in the south of England. The ovate variety of this section may be a transitional form midway between the other two. Some specimens resemble the typical " ovatus " of the Micraster cor-anguinum-zone. It is probable that the junction with the Marsupites-zone hes just below the present bottom of the wide shaft which forms the lowest part of the quarry. As the owner purposes deep- ening this shaft the section is likely to increase in interest as time goes on. The maximum thickness of Act. quadratu^-ohalk so far exposed is about 40 feet (measured along lines normal to the bedding planes), but the dip observed must bring in higher beds to the south-west, for the surface of the (chalk) ground around the pit slopes, at a lower angle, towards the west and north-west, while the base of the neighbouring Eqcene Beds is incUned, also at a lower angle, towards the south. How far south-westwards the dip persists is uncertain, as the two other exposures of chalk in that direction are too small to show the bedding. From the close proximity of the Marsupites-chsiik to the Eocene boundary on the west, however, it is inferred that the dip is reversed within half a mile of the Lay- land's Green pit. One of the two exposures just referred to is at the top of an overgrown quarry, one furlong distant from the above pit. It has yielded two bad specimens of Echinocorys scutatus, suggestive of the gibbous form. In the other, three fur- longs distant from the Layland's Green excavation, and at the bottom of the little valley south-west of Barrymores, one example of Ojfaster pUlida was obtained, after some search. A few forms 42 UPPER chaEk. suggestive of the zone of Act. quadratus have been found in the road banks by the smithy. The little quadratus outlier of Kintbuiy, like that of Winter- bourne, lies in a shallow syncline or basin whose formation ante- dates the deposition of the Reading Beds. 43 CHAPTER VI. STRUCTURAL RELATIONS OF THE CHALK AND THE LOWER EOCENE BEDS. Some idea of the relations subsisting between the Chalk and the overlying Eocene rocks in this part of the country has, no doubt, been gained from the remarks on the preceding pages ; but the subject is one worthy of more particular notice, and a few para- graphs will be devoted to it before passing on to the consideration of the Eocene Beds themselves. When describing the Woolwich and Reading Series of the London Basin, in 1872, Mr. Whitaker remarked that " Although sections do not show any unconformity between this formation and the Chalk , yet there may be some unconformity, so gradual that it can be inferred only by the comparison of a series of distant sections. However, although the Reading Beds may rest on different beds of the Chalk at different places, there are as yet no means of abso - lutely proving such to be the case in this [London Basin] district."* Since these words were penned, the researches of Dr. Barrels, Dr. A. W. Rowe, and other observers have furnished the means of settling this important point ; and a rough mapping of the boun- daries of the higher zones of the Upper Chalk by means of the data obtainable in scattered quarries and other, smaller, exposures has not only demonstrated the existence of this unconformity in the Hungerford area, but has also shown it to be more pronounced than Mr. Whitaker would seem to have suspected. The boundaries of the Act. quadratus-zone, and of the two well- marked subdivisions of the MarsupUes-zone, so far as the present writer has been able to trace them, are indicated on the accom- panying sketch-map (Figure 4) of the piece of country covered by Sheet 267. The value of each of these boundary lines varies greatly from place to place, and in certain areas the opening of new pits may necessitate considerable alterations in their mapping. Nevertheless, it is believed that their inaccuracies are not of suffi- cient importance seriously to affect the inferences here drawn from their general position and trend. The map shows that the main mass and outliers of the Eocene strata to the south of the Kennet, rest, as a rule, upon the chalk of the Marsufites-hand, but are underlain by the Adinocamax quadratus-h^As near Kintbury, by the XJi'ntacfrinus-\)&A& to the south-west and south-east of Hungerford, and by the Micraster cor-anguinum-chsdk to the north-west of that town. North of the Kennet, the Tertiaries are in contact with the " The Geology of the London Basin," p. 100, 44 !^ rON E OF K MARSUPrTEi Fig. 4, RELATIONS OF CHALK AND EOCENE. 45 Uintacrinus-hand over a small, irregular, and possibly dis- continuous tract extending from the neighbourhood of Wickham, south-eastwards at least as far as (and probably much farther than) Shaw, but lie directly upon some part of the upper half of the M. cor-anguinum-heds everywhere else, except in the little area west of Winterbourne, where the Marsupites- and Act. quadratus-heds reappear, in an outlier.* Despite the occurrence of outlying bodies of the Act. quadratus- chalk near Kintbury and Winterbourne, the tendency of the Eocene rocks to overstep the higher zones of the Chalk towards the north is clearly recognisable. That the dying out of the Marswpites- zone in that direction is actually due to an overstep, and not merely to an overlap arising from a constructional attenuation of this subdivision of the Chalk through lack of sediment, is rendered probable by the fact that the B^arsupites-hand invariably disappears before the Uintacrinus-hand ; and is practically proved by the existence of the Winterbourne outlier, which demonstrates the former extension of both the Marsupites and Act. quadratus- zones over an area where the Eocenes are, as a rule, in contact with some portion of the Mioraster cor-anguinum-zone. The recognised shrinkage of the Marsupites-zone in this area may have accentuated, but cannot have caused, the observed discordance. This northward overstep of the higher parts of the Chalk may safely be attributed to an early Tertiary, or pre-Tertiary, planation of that formation after it had received a gentle tilt, approximately towards the south. Whether the differential movements responsible for this tilting were systematically related to the later disturbances which produced the prevailing south-eastward to south-south-east- ward dip of the Eocene Beds on the northern side of the London Basin, has still to be determined. In this district, and in the country adjoining it on the east, the strikes of the higher Creta- ceous and lower Eocene strata, though locally divergent, seem on the whole to be roughly parallel. On the southern side of the district there is no evidence of such an overstep towards the south. Much of the Upper Chalk, and all the Eocene Beds (with the exception of a few " pipe-outliers ") are missing from the crest of the Sydmonton range, but in the off -set ridge to the north, between Durley and Woodhay, and along the foot of the range to its south-eastern termination at Basingstoke, Mr. Treacher and the writer have observed Marsu- pites-chalk (usually with the name-fossil) at intervals sufficiently * It is not unlikely that an outlier of Vintacrinus-chidk. occurs beneath the Eocene outlier of Beedon HiU. The chalk seen close beneath the Reading Beds in the road cutting there {see p. 23) almost certainly belongs to a higher part of the M. cor-angvinum-zone than that in a similar position at Oare and near Wellhouso (just beyond E. border of this district), a few miles to the 8.E. of Beedon Hill. It may also be observed that Beedon HiU is nearly in the same S.W.-N.E. line or belt, of country as the high-zonal Chalk outliers of Kintbury and Winterbourne. 46 RELATIONS OF CHALK AND EOCENE. short to leave little doubt that its outcrop is continuous on the south-western border of the London Basin. The persistence of this zone in the short and strongly-inclined northern limb of the Kingsclere-Pewsey anticline is a point of some interest ; not only as showing that the anticline in question was but faintly, if at all, defined in the earlier part of the Eocene period,* but also as affording good groimds for the belief that the Marswpites-ch.aXk in the country to the north of this fold was, at that epoch, still con- tinuous with the beds of the same age occurring in the Hampshire Basra, to the south. Admitting this continuity, it becomes ap- parent that the northward overstep of the higher zones of the Chalk by the Eocenes, observed in the Hungerford district, is no merely local phenomenon, but part of the long-recognised trans- gression which cuts out the BdemniteUa mucronata-zone to the north of Salisbury, and the main body of the underlying Act. quadratus-zone somewhere between that place and the crest of the Sydmonton range. A discussion of the unconformity between the Cretaceous and the Eocene rocks in the south of England — even if it could be profitably entered into at the present date — ^would be out of place in this Memoir, but two broad inferences to be drawn from the facts relating to this discordance in Berkshire, Wiltshire, and Hampshire yet to hand may be mentioned here. They are : — (1) That at, or a little after, the close of the Cretaceous period the tract now occupied by the western half of the London Basin formed part of the northern slope of an area of relative depression, whose centre or axis lay far to the south — ^possibly on the site of the English Channel ; and (2) That before the deposition of the earliest Eocene sediments so far recognised in the region referred to, the gently-inclined Chalk on this slope was subjected to a rigorous planation, by marine or other agencies, which bevelled off its higher zones in descending order towards the north, leaving here and there a troughed outHer (such as that near Kintbury) to witness the former extension of the eroded beds. Note. — In his Memoir on ' The Country South and East of Devizes ' (Explanation of Sheet 282), which was published after the above was written, Mr. Jukes-Browne remarks that " the position of the Eocene Beds to the north of the Vale of Pewsey, etc., shows that the arch of the Pewsey anticline was formed principally before the deposition of the Beading Beds" (p. 42). This inference was so much at variance with the facts before the present writer that, on receiving a copy of the work in question, he communicated with Mr. Jukes-Browne, calling attention to the grave objections to which it was open. In reply, Mr. Jukes-Browne stated that the Devizes Memoir was written four or five years previous to its publication, and admitted that the fresh information bearing on the age of the Pewsey anticline adduced by the present writer certainly necessitated some alteration of the " older views," whose correctness he himself had lately seen reason to doubt. * See note at the end of this chapter. 47 CHAPTER VII. EOCENE. The Eocene deposits underlie about one-third of the country included in this sheet. From the south-eastern part of the area, where they have their greatest development, a tongue-shaped mass projects westward between the Kennet and the southern Chalk uplands ; a second mass, with a very irregular boujidary and connected with the first beneath the Kennet near Thatcham, extends northward by Cold Ash and Hermitage ; while in the angle between these spreads, and in many other places, outliers, from five or six miles down to a furlong or less in longest diameter, remain to show that these rocks once overspread the entire district. The Eocene strata attain their greatest thickness (about 220 feet) on the south, at Inkpen Common and West Woodhay, whence they thin away northward and westward, partly as a result of wasting since their deposition as a whole, partly as an outcome of the conditions under which they were formed. The amount of published information with respect to these beds near Hungerford is rather large, and, though fresh material is available, the writer has found little of importance to add to the detailed descriptions of Messrs. Whitaker, Bristow, and Avehne, contained in the " Geology of the London Basin " and earUer Memoirs of the Geological Survey. When the first survey was in progress, between fifty and sixty years ago, the larger sections generally were in better condition than at present, and it has therefore been considered better to repubUsh the old descriptions of them, than to write new ones of a less comprehensive character. The subdivisions of the Eocene rocks distinguished on Sheet 267 are : — (Lower) Bagshot Beds. London Clay. Reading Beds. It is possible, however, that some small remnants of another group — the Middle Bagshot, or Bracklesham Beds — occur in the southern part of the district, near Inkpen. No strata referable to the Thanet Sand, or to the Oldhaven and Blackheath Beds, have been observed, though Mr. Whitaker has questioned whether the formation of the "reconstructed chalk" at the base of the Reading Beds near Bedwyn may not " have gone on at the same time as the deposition of the Thanet Series."* * " The Geology of the London Basin," 1872, p. 54. 48 EOCENE. Eeading Beds. As in the locality whence it derives its name, this formation is composed of clay, sand, and loam in varying proportions, with some local seams and lenses of flint-pebbles. Two very unequal divisions are generally distinguishable. The lower of these, known as the " Bottom-Bed," consists of a few feet of dark green, or speckled greyish-green, glauconitic, loamy sand, interbedded with seams of grey, greenish, or brown clay, often roughly laminated. Slightly- worn and pitted flint-nodules with green coats, and pebbles and sub-angular chips of flint with the same external colouration, are almost invariably present at the base; the nodules usually ap- pearing in section as a single row at, or a few inches above, the top of the Chalk. Concretions of iron oxide, small granular aggre- gates of " race," and fine seams of chalky material are not uncommon in the same position, and in some places these, and derived Chalk fossils, are abundant. Banks of closely-packed oyster-shells form a striking feature of the Bottom-Bed in not a few sections. Save where indented by "pipes," the junction with the Chalk is even, or at most but slightly undulate ; and the top of that rock is often penetrated by tubular borings filled with the same greenish material as that forming the lowest layers of the bed above. The features of the Bottom -Bed indicate shallow-water marine conditions ; and whatever the nature of the agency chiefly respon- sible for the erosion of the Chalk which preceded the deposition of this bed, the ultimate shaping of the basal platform of the Eocene sediments probably was the work of the sea. The higher, and by far the thicker, division of the Reading Series is composed of extremely irregular alternations of stifi, more or less plastic, structureless clays, with sand and loam. The clays are of many colours — shades of grey, blue, and brown predomi- nating ; but the tint of the ground-mass is usually disguised by the characteristic mottlings of bright red. The sands are often grey, buii, and orange-coloured, with occasional blotches of crim- son ; while the loams are commonly some shade of brown. No two sections of these beds are alike, and even within the limits of a single brickyard- exposure marked changes in the character and in the relative proportions of the sands and clays may often be observed. Much of this variability is attributable to the rapid alternation of deposition and erosion during the time occupied by the accumulation of the whole groups of beds ; the sands being laid down in hollows scoured out of the clay, and vice versa. Another sign of intra-formational erosion is seen in the angular and roUed pieces (or " galls ") of clay often present in the more sandy lenses. The only fossils recorded in this part of the series are small pieces of lignite, silicified wood, and impressions of leaves suggestive of the flora of a temperate cHme. Leaf -impressions have been observed at two localities in this district, and are there, apparently, confined to seams of clay in sands closely-overlying READING BEDS. 49 the complex Bottom-Bed, as at Reading and other localities farther east. The autumnal seasons recorded in a given group of leaf -beds may not be many, for the sands which contain the impersistent seams of finer sediment preserving the vegetable-im- pressions are often markedly current-bedded, and look as though they had been quickly formed. Over the greater part of the area the thickness of the Reading Beds, where still capped by the London Clay, varies between 60. and 80 feet, but it undergoes a rather sudden reduction near the Bedwyns, to the west of which there is, in some places, room for no more than 15 to 20 feet of the formation between the succeeding division of the Eocene and the top of the Chalk. The main mass and outliers to the north of the Kennet will be dealt with before those to the south of that river, and the several exposures described approximately in their order from east to west. Most of the following notes are taken from Mr. Whitaker's " Geology of the London Basin," but their order has been changed, modern place-names have been substituted for old ones that are not to be found in the new one-inch map, and some of the less important details have been excised. North of the Kennet. The first place must be accorded to the very typical succession shown in the pits at Shaw (Clay Hill), near Newbury. As the section now visible in the pits at the kiln east of the Didcot Rail- way differs in many respects from that described by Mr. Whitaker in 1872,* the principal features of both are given below ; the earlier description being that in the left-hand column. London Clay I ^ Brown olay, passing into the next Basement-bed — brownish sandy clay, with a httle ironstone, containing casts of shells ; at the base a bed of flint- pebbles, S( large very about Ft. Ft. ,/ Brown clay, passing down into Basement bed — brown sandy clay (some iron- stone, but no shells ob- served). At the base, a thin bed of flint pebbles, a few of large size - - - 12 10 B«ading Beds ( Variously coloured mot- tled plastic clays, with a little sand near the middle /Bed and blue mottled plastic clay, with a very irregular and im- persistent bed of yel- about 25 ( low sand, from a few inches to 2 feet thick, at the top, and a seam of grey " fire- (^ clay " 25 feet down - 40 * " The Geology of the London Basin," p. 184. 9114. E 50 EOCENE. Beading Beds / /White and light-coloured 1 sands, with a thin bed of pale bluish-grey clay containing impressions of leaves, as at Reading, very coarse at the base, about Ft. Ft. 13 Bottom-bed : — dark blu- ish-grey shaly clay, with green sand, pebbles and oyster shells ; at the base some green- coated angular flints, over 12 Light-coloured sands (sloped and over- grown) about Stratified buff loamy sand about Brown and reddish ferru- ginous, laminated clays Brown loamy clay, with a seam of green grains near the top ■ Compact, brown, sandy clay, with masses of Ostrea bdlovacina Stiff, dark grey and black clay Dark green and grey sandy clay ; nearly black, and containing many shells of 0. bdlovacina and some teeth of Lamna near the top ; brownish near base, and containing many small pebbles and subangular pieces of green-stained flint, to- gether with PorosphcBra globidaris, Crinoid and Asteroid ossicles, and other Chalk fossils, and a little brown lignite Chalk, with tubular borings. H n' Mr. Whitaker gives the thickness of the Eeadiag Beds here as " about 52 feet," on the authority of Professor Prestwich.* The total of the measurements made by the present writer (in 1905) is about 60 feet. The chief discrepancy is in the thicknesses of the mottled clays. These were twice measured by the writer with closely-accordant results, which were subsequently confirmed by Mr. Palmer, the manager of the Brickworks. The fossils re- cordedf from the Bottom-Bed are : — Chelonia (hones) Lamna sp. (teeth, common) ? Cardium laytoni, Morris Nucula sp. Ostrea bellovacina. Lam., O. edulina. Sow. ? Tellina Cy there (Cytheridea) muelleri, Manst. Globulina ? Lignite * " The Structure of the Strata between the London Clay and the Chalk, etc., Woolwich and Reading Series," Quart. Journ. Oeol. Soc, Vol. x., 1854, p. 87. t By Mr. Whitaker in " The Geology of the London Basin," pp. 576-78. READING BEDS. 51 The vegetable remains (leaves) in the sands above have not been identified- The borings in the Chalk below the Bottom-Bed form a series of inter- secting tubes, from 1 to | of an inch in diameter. The majority of these tubes are confined to a belt, 16 inches thick, the lower limit of which is marked by a horizontal joint-plane; but a few — generally of the larger cahbre — penetrate to a depth of 30 inches, and the sandy contents of two or three of these was found to be cemented into rod-like concretions by crystaUine barium sulphate. The unknown organism (probably an animal) responsible for these tubes has, in each case, started from t^'e top of the Chalk and burrowed along a regularly-curved hne, in or near the vertical plane, which has carried it ujj to the surface again at a distance of a few inches, feet, or yards from the point of entry. In one instance a boring was seen to be deflected by a test of Echinocorys ; and many of the tubes are flattened by the lateral pressure which has crushed the larger Chalk fossils. The more root-like, vertical, branching type of boring, sometimes seen in sections of the junction of the Chalk and Reading Beds, was not observed here. A chalk-pit on the west side of the railway shows a httle of the lowest beds in situ, and some masses of disturbed sand and clay in a large pipe. East of The Holt the following succession was formerly visible in a newly- made road to BQgh Wood : — " Light greenish clay. Basement-Bed of /Orange and hght-coloured sandy clay \ . the London Clay. \Bed of large rounded flints - - | 4 or 5 teet. Reading Beds- /Yellow sand. \. Yellow sand and hght-coloured clay. * " In the brickyard about half a mile north of Thatcham there is yeUow, white, and red mottled clay, and the like occurs at Henwick, N.N.W. of the same village." t " From the neighbourhood of Newbury the Reading Beds rise northwards, with an inlet of Chalk between the high grounds of Curridge [or Courage] and Coldash Commons for more than two miles. From Curridge Common the boimdary-line runs in a general north- easterly direction, but in a very irregular manner, and gradually rises to a higher level as it trends northwards, showing that the general dip is in a contrary direction." " Along the bottom of the large valley south of Curridge, the bottom-bed may often be seen on both sides, as in the road nearly half a mile to the east of Red Farm, where it is almost black, being full of very dark green grains ; or below Fisher's Green, on the east and south of Curridge ; and at the Grange. At this last place there was a section showing some re- markable parallel-sided pipes of the bottom-bed in the Chalk : the beds being : — Feet. Yellow and white clay .... . . about 2 Greenish-brown sand, with oyster-sheUs in the lower part - „ 3 " In the sand filling the pipes there are no shells. " Along the western side of this valley there are swallow-holes. The lowest part of its prolongation northwards, from the east of Curridge to Copyhold Farm, consists of the bottom-bed alone ; so that the Chalk is but a few feet from the surface of the ground ; and this is also the case for some distance between Fisher's Green and Hermitage.''^ " In the valley south of Curridge there are two outhers, but little separated from each other or from the main mass, which nearly surrounds them, and chiefly composed of sand. In the northern one, in a chalk-pit by the road to the south of Curridge, there is a section of the bottom-bed, which is here * " The Geology of the London Basin," p ^ 185. f ^6»'^-. p. 184. t Ibid., p. 185. 9114. E 2 52 EOCENE. over 5 feet thick, and consists of sUghtly laminated grey clay and clayey sand, with green grains scattered more or less throughout; at the base there are green-coated flints and oyster-shells, much broken up. The Junction with the Chalk is even, and shows a sUght dip in a south-easterly direction. In making chalk-wells in these outliers much iron-sandstone has been found in the sand." * " SiUcified masses of wood " were found in the Reading sanda m «■ cutting on the railway north of Newbury, f On the west side of the high road at Long Lane a pit in beds near the middle of the Series shows : — Ft. Drift gravel, with many flint- pebbles, pocketed into — Yellow, false-bedded sand with brown bands and stripes - 5 Grey clay and grey loamy sand in alternate seams 1 Grey laminated clay, thinning out eastwards - 1 Bluish-grey sand, loamy at the top, and containing pebbles of grey clay, soft concretions of ironstone, and lenticles of carbonaceous matter near the bottom 7 The beds dip north-north-west at 10°, possibly as a result of deposition on an inclined surface of older members of the Series. " In the large extent of country which they occupy in the neigh- bourhood of Curridge, Hermitage, and Gate, this Series consists chiefly of sand, the higher parts, however, being capped with mottled plastic clay, as may be seen on the hills to the north of the first place, and on the slope of those to the south of the second." " At the brickyard, a quarter of a mile south-west of Oare, the following section was shown : — London Clay and its basement-bed, consisting of brown sandy clay, with a bed of ironstone, and at the bottom a few inches of blue shaly clay, about 10 feet. {Green, yellow, and white clay. Thin bed of bright red clay. Red, white, and yeUow sands. % " East of Gidley Farm there is brown sand, which appears to extend in a thin narrow strip over the highest part of Beedon Common ; but, owing to the extent to which the sand has been washed down over the surface of the Chalk, the boundary-line is uncertain. The Chalk rises almost to the top of Beedon Hill, where it is capped by the Reading Beds, which dip to the south. At the brickyard by the turnpike-road the beds do not seem to have any order, with the exception of those immediately above the Chalk, which are : — Brown sand, with a layer of ironstone at the bottom. Bottom- Bed. Clay, with green grains, 8 inches to a foot. Reading j Brown and greenish-grey sand, passing downwards Beds '^ into clay ; with a few flints, some of the smaller ones rounded, the larger not, about 2 feet. Layer of ironstone, J inch to 1^ inches. " Chalk, slightly coloured brown at top, by iron from the bed above. " Above these there are variously coloured sands, showing false bedding, and containing bands of iron-sandstone and ironstone, and occasional (lints ; * " The Geology of the London Basin," p. 194. t Prestwich, "Geology " (1888), vol. ii, p. 344. i "The Geology of the London Basin," p. 186. READING BEDS. 53 and clays equally varied in hue, with traces of vegetable remains. The junction with the Chalk is evidently very irregular."* In a small pit at the northern edge of the yard there was visible (in 1905) some greyish sand containing a mass of small angular pieces of soft grey clay : a breccia, recalling the well-known " tesselated bed " in the Ashdown Sand of the Hastings cUffs. " In the fields on the slope of the hiU towards Beedon, pipes of the bottom-bed are met with in making chalk-wells ; and they often descend some depth into the Chalk. " At the eastern end of the outlier, in an old sand-pit in the corner of Langley Park, Greywether Sandstonei in place may be seen. " The sand has been dug away from around the stone, which is seven feet thick at the spot where it is most exposed ; the bottom is not seen, but it is clear that there is yellow sand beneath ; the top is very little above the surface of the ground. Throughout nearly its whole thickness the stone is made up of an aggre- gation of balls of sandstone, from the size of a pea to that of a plum ; at the lower part these are comparatively soft and easily broken ; they are of a yellow colour, and the spaces between them are filled with the ordinary yellow sand of the Reading Beds ; higher up they are harder and of a duller colour, and the sand between them is also hardened ; near the top they are hardly to be seen, the stone being uniform throughout, and the top surface is exactly like that of an ordinary Greywether. At one part there is a hollow concretion of iron-sandstone, like those found in the sands of the Reading Beds. " That this mass of stone was not placed in its present position by man is clear from its size, the extreme length and breadth -being respectively about 12 and 5 paces ; moreover, the lower part is comparatively soft, and would give way to the pressure to which so heavy a body would necessarily be subjected in order to move it." J Technically speaking, this interesting and strangely-picturesque stone is not a greywether or sarsen, siace — as Professor Rupert Jones has pointed out § — its cementing-material is calcareous. Samples taken from difierent parts of the rock, including the hardest and most sarsen-like band at the top, effervesced briskly in warm dilute hydrochloric acid, and crumbled down into a white or light yellow sand composed of rounded and polished quartz - grains. Freshly-exposed surfaces of the stone exhibit the shimmer of the cleavage planes in the binding calcite. Since Mr. Whitaker's account (which first appeared in the Geo- logical Survey Memoir on Sheet 13 (1861), p. 35) was written the stone has been broken into blocks, from 2 to 7 or more feet in length, and the pieces piled up in the midst of the pit. Small groups of spheroidal concretions, of the same character as those in the stone, occur in the ferruginous sands exposed in the sides of the excavation, which has long remained imworked. Most of the * " The Geology of the London Basin," p. 193. f There is a specimen of this in the Geological Museum, Jermyn Street. See the " Catalogue of Rock Specimens," ed. 3, p. 164, 27902. J Ibid., p. 193. Another account is given by the Rev. J. Adams in a paper " On the Sarsen Stones of Berks and Wilts," Trans. Newbury District Fidd Clvh for 1871, p. 103 ; repubUshed in the Ged. Magazine, vol. x., 1873, pp. 198-202. § " Notes on some Sarsden Stones," Oeol. Mag., dec. 2, vol ii., 1875, p. 588. 54 EOCENE. spheroids bear one or more zones in relief, marking the planes of bedding or lamination of the sands in which they have developed. " There seems to be some slight disturbance afEeoting the Beedon Hill outUer, which consists chiefly of sand, the Chalk being at a very high level at Beedon Hill, whilst to the west the Reading Beds slope down to a lower level. " Ahnost joining the above in Langley Wood there are two smaller outliers of sand ; east of these is a hillock of the same, and half a mile to the east of the Three Crowns Inn another. " South-east of Prior's Court there is a small sand outlier. " A larger mass extends from Oareborough Hill nearly to Prior's Court, and also consists almost wholly of sand, which may be seen in the roads near the former place. "North of Oare a strip of sand is but barely separated both from the main mass and the Oareborough Hill outlier ; and at Four Ehns, N.N.E. of the same village; there is a little brown sand, but no evidence of its extending any distance. " The boundary-lines of all these outliers, between Beedon and Oare, are much hidden by gravel and drifted sand."* The outlier mapped to the north of Wooley House is part of a strip of sand extending through Farnborough Copse, beyond the limits of Sheet 267. " The long hill [of Snelsmore Common] stretching from the south of Chieveley to Donnington, consists of the Heading Beds, capped, in parts, by London Clay, and nearly the whole thickly covered with flint gravel. Along the western side there are occa- sional swallow-holes, but no good sections. " At the northern end, where the Chieveley outlier almost joins it, there are traces of the bottom-bed with sand above it. Along the eastern side of the hill are more swaUow-holes, ' SwiUy Copse ' [a quarter of a mile N. of Island ViUa] probably deriving its name from ' swUly,' a provincial term for swallow-hole. Above Kitohel's Farm [south of Arlington Manor] is a pit in brown and light-coloured sands, and another about three-quarters of a mile further south. At Donnington Kiln [east of The Holt] the foUowing section was shown : — Gravel. /Light-brown and grey mottled sandy clay, with flints (mostly rounded, but a few sub-angular) and iron- Basement-Bed J stone at the base. of the \ A line of large rounded flints, remarkable for their London Clay. ' rottenness ' (falling to pieces when tapped but [ lightly). Reading Beds : — Brown and light-coloured sand and mottled clays. " At Chieveley is an outlier consisting chiefly of sand. Along the turnpike- .road, south of the twenty-second milestone, there is a section showing light- coloured sands and clays, and in the valley to the west pipes of the bottom- bed may be seen."t " A mile and a half southward of Chaddleworth is another outlier. In a field at its western end is a small section showing an irregular junction of the bottom-bed, here very thin, with the Chalk. In the wood there is a small sand-pit ; and there have been others. There is also a little brickearth here. * " The Geology of the London Basin,' p. 194. t Ibid., p. 193. READING BEDS. 55 " Half a mile south of Southend, near the same village, there is a small patch of yellow sand. " Bast of Rowbury Farm is a larger and thicker outlier, also of sand, appar- ently faulted at its southern end, as the Tertiary sand is at a much lower level than the clay-covered CJhalk just to the south, and the line of junction between them is at the foot of the rise. ' ' Just north is another, partly on the slope of the hill, and capped with gravel. "About half a mile W.N.W. of North Heath there is a road-section showing the green clayey sand of the bottom-bed above the Chalk ; and just to the west of the common is another small outlier of sand. Both are much covered with Drift." West of Winterbourne there is an " outlier of considerable thickness and marked feature, apparently consisting almost wholly of sand. " The Tertiary beds are thickly covered with flint-gravel, and therefore are but little seen ; there is however a sand-pit at Borough Hill, another just west of Winterbourne, and a third on the top of the hiU, about haMway be- tween them. The sand is brown, buff, yellow and white [and occasionally very coarse]. " At Hour Hill, south-east of Boxford, is a smaller, but equally well-marked, outlier of sand. "A mile to the south of Winterbourne is another small sand hill, at the northern part of which [Mr. Whitaker] saw the bottom-bed in a chalk-well."* " The long line of hill between Wickham and Newbury is thickly capped with the Reading Beds," which are overlain in places by London Clay ; " indeed the Tertiary beds in this case form the hill, as they rise on all sides somewhat steeply above the level of the surrounding Chalk, with a breadth of from half a mile to nearly a mile, and a length of about six miles. Owing to the covering of a flint-gravel there are few sections ; but the boundary is marked in places by swallow-holes. "f " Just below the' Nag's Head, east of Speen, there is a brickyard, the pit in which gives the following general section : — Flint-gravel. f YeUow, white, and red mottled clay. Reading Beds. J YeUow sandy clay. ^ Reddish-brown and light blue mottled clay. [ YeUow sandy clay. • "Along the boundary of the Reading Beds from this part to Speen, the ground has slipped in many places, and the clays and sands of that forma- tion have thus fallen down below their true boundary-line. At the brick- yard east of Speen the following beds have been found : — Gravel of angular and rounded flints, irregular, filling hoUows in the underlying clays and sands, from a foot to several feet thick. Feet. Dark coloured stiff clay, in places reddish, with an admixture of yellow sand. Yellow and white sand, with thin beds of light- Reading I coloured clay - - - - about 12 Beds. \ Stiff blue clay, with thin layers of ironstone and of yellow sand . . - - - - „ 12 Bottom-bed : — green sand, with an oyster-bed at the base „ fi Chalk. * "The Geology of the London Basin," p. 192. t Ibid., p. 180. 56 EOCENE. "No dependence can be placed on the continuance of the above thick- nesses for any distance, nor even on that of the beds themselves, for they seem to be in wedge-shaped masses. The bottom-bed and the lower part of the bed over-lying it were not to be seen when the section was noted (1858) • the information was got from a workman who had seen the beds down to the Caialk in the pit, and in a well in the brickyard.' * The ' leaf-beds ' are said to have been met with (low down in the Koading Series) in the cutting on the Lamboum Valley Railway at Speen "In the road-cutting at the southern end of the smaU spur west of Hoe Benham the bottom-bed is shown ; at the cross roads at that place a trace of it may be seen, and a few chains higher up the valley there is a large swaUow-hole. In a field on the western side of the hill above this the bottom- bed was exposed in sinking a chalk-weU ; and higher up there is sand. Be- tween this and Wormstall Farm, south of Wickham, there are several swaUow- holes, and near that farm and to the west of it, the olive-green sand of the bottom-bed occurs in some abundance in the fields ; and as it is for the most part bare of drift, gives a good boundary-Une-t " The hiU on which Wickham C!hurch is placed seems to consist almost whoUy of sand, with a few flint-pebbles in parts, as noticed by Mr. Prestwich, the white sand to which he alludes being, however, underlaid by the ohve- green sand noticed above. " The pits at the Wickham brickyard gave the following general section in 1858:— , , ^ , Drift gravel of rounded and sub-angular flints and fragments of sarsen- stones in coarse sand, filling up hollows m the bed below. Basement-Bed / Mottled clay, with a few flint-pebbles at the base. of the ( A line of rounded flints of various sizes, most of the London Clay. \ smaller ones being white. l' Yellow sand with a little light-coloured clay. Reading j Crimson green and dark blue mottled clays. Beds. S Grey and white sand. I Ohve-green sand (bottom-bed). Chalk. " The pits are not clear, and the thickness of the beds cannot be seen, and therefore it may be as well to give the divisions which Mr. Prestwich observed in the Reading Beds here.J Perhaps the lower part of the section was better at the time of his visit ; and this may partly account for the discrepancy of the two versions, another reason for which is that the section must have been cut further back into the hill since the^earlier note was made (for there is no notice therein of London Clay being shown) which might make much difference, because of the changeable nature of the Series : — Feet. Yellow sands, more or less clayey 15 ? Mottled black red and greenish clays - 20 ? Brown and yellow clay, and ochreous sand 5 Reading Beds I Light-yellow sand striped ochreous and grey 4 61 feet ? I Very tough greenish-grey clay 3 Grey sand passing down into fine white sharp sand 12 ? ^ Light brown clay, and green-coated flints beneath 2 ? " The olive-green sand is also to be seen in the fields north-east of the brick- yard. Hence the boundary-hne trends irregularly in a south-easterly direc- tion, much hidden by Drift, but there are swallow-holes in many of the valleys."§ Sandy sarsens, and sarsens containing pebbles of flint, are * "The Geology of the London Basin," p. 181. f ibid., loc. cit. t The Woolwich and Reading Beds, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc, vol. x., 1854, p. 86. § " The Geology of the London Basin," pp. 180-181. READING BEDS. 57 rather abundant on the Reading Beds at Wickham. Good examples are seen by the Inn, and on the sides of the road a little to the west.* " At Haycroft Copse, south of Wiokham, there is a small outlier of sand, of an olive-green colour towards the bottom. This sand occurs plentifully in this neighbourhood, and lies immediately on the Chalk ; indeed it is the only part of the bottom-bed here present. "Just east of the above, at Elect Green, is a long strip of sand, almost joining the large Wickham outlier. A great part of this consists of the olive green sand alone, f "North of Hidden Farm there is a patch of brown and grey mottled clay and sand. At Straight Soley an irregular junction of the bottom-bed with the Chalk may be seen in the smail road-cutting, and there is white sand in a pond just by. This outlier is in a basin. " South of Lyokweed Farm there is an old pit in sand and plastic clay, also on the slope of the hill. " To the south-west of thLs there is another old sand-pit, the working of which was abandoned [Mr. Whitaker was informed] on account of the workmen meeting with a bed of hard rock, probably greywether-sandstone in place. This outUer also is in a hoUow in the Chalk. " At Hill's Farm there is a small outlier of sand. " Just north of Harpwood is a pit about 10 feet deep, showing a little blue plastic clay above light-coloured sand. This pit lies a little way down the slope of the hill, and must be in a basin in the Chalk, imless there be some small disturbance." J " At the so-called ' Burying Ground' [south of Woodland Lodge] the sections in the brickyard show brown and light sands and bluish plastic clay, in parts capped with briokearth. " In Wall's Copse there is an old pit, now a pond, from which light-coloured sand has been got ; with the sand there is a Uttle pale bluish plastic clay. This is in a hoUow in the Chalk."§ South of the Kennet. The outcrop of the main mass of the Reading Beds on this side of the river runs from the boundary of the district, three and a half miles east of Newbury, nearly due westward to Wallington, where it turns south and south eastward, by Inkpen and Woodhay, along the foot of the Sydmonton Range. " This Series is concealed between Newbury and Enbome by a wide- spread and deep accumulation of gravel. Where, however, the gravel has been sunk through so as to reach the underlying beds, they are found to consist of the sands belonging to the Reading Series. This occurred during the progress of the Survey in 1859, when in building some new houses, south of the railway, the weUs were dug in greenish sand, yielding a plentiful supply of excellent water. The same beds were observed to underUe the gravel in the railway-cutting, and to serve for the foundations of the new school- houses, then being built, close to the first bridge west of the station. At the latter place the green sand was sunk through for a depth of 10 feet, when water was obtained from a bed of clay 9 inches thick, with pebbles. These sands contain imfailing supplies of excellent water, not only at the * See Prestwioh, op. cit., p. 124, and Whitaker, Memoir on Sheet 13, 1861 , pp. 47 and 48. t " The Geology of the London Basin," p. 180. i Ibid., p. 180. § Ibid., p. 178. 58 EOCENE. places mentioned, but also along the road from Newbury to Thatcham, where weUs have been made in them for the purpose of obtaining water for the roads. The weUs, which have an average depth of about 35 feet, were difficult to make, in consequence of a white sand running in with the water to such a degree as to produce a subsidence of the groimd, and the formation of a cavity at the bottom of the well large enough (according to the description of one of the workmen) to turn a horse and cart in. " Another well at Newbury, opposite Mr. Graham's, is 34 feet in depth. The upper 10 or 12 feet consisted of gravel, resting on 12 or 15 feet of greenish sand, based upon paler and whiter sand. The oyster-bed a foot in thickness divided the above sands from the Chalk, which occupied the lowest 3 feet in the well. At Southampton Terrace the wells afiorded nearly similar results, the section being first through gravel, while the lowermost 6 or 7 feet consisted of sand, here also becoming paler and then very white towards the bottom."* The well at Greenham Lodge [See Appendix A] proved 80 feet of Reading Beds, below the London Clay. At the brickyards south of Skinner's Green Farm, the London Clay, " which is the uppermost bed seen, consists of ferruginous-brown sandy clay with concretions of iron-ore and particles of green matter disseminated through it. Beneath and resting on brown and green stiff mottled clay, belonging to the Reading Beds, the basement-bed intervenes, formed of a line of pebbles imbedded in yellow sand. Most of these pebbles are black, but some (both large and small) are white."t A little to the west of Cope Hall a sand-pit shows pale greenish-white clay with red mottlings, beneath the basement-bed of the London Clay ; and "a similar bed appears also to be the uppermost of the Reading Beds in the road from Enborne to the Craven Arms, at the intersection of the four-cross roads, where it may be recognized in the road-cutting, overlying the sands, which constitute the upper part of the formation. The sand may also be seen in the various road-cuttings, as well as in a pit on the east of the road from the Craven Arms to Hampstead Marshall. " At another sand-pit about 200 yards south-west of that near Cope Hall the junction with the London Clay is still more sharply defined. Here that formation rests with its basement-bed on an uneven surface of sand, which exhibits lines of false lamination and occasional ferruginous-brown stains. A hard band of reddish-brown ferruginous sand generally occurs below ttie basement-bed, and a layer of pipe-clay an inch thick, containing angular flints and flint-pebbles, and replaced towards the basement-bed by a black carbonaceous line, rests on an uneven surface of sand."J " By the small inlier of Chalk south of Hampstead Marshall Ostrea edvlina is plentiful in the beds which immediately overlie the Chalk in the road- cutting, and the same fossil is also met with in abundance in similar beds in a small chalk-pit nearly half a mile westwards."§ "There is another patch at L-ish Hill, a mile east of Kintbury, and a smaller one close to the main mass southwards." || " There is a fair exposure of the junction with the London Clay at the brickyard round the northern end of Pebble Hill [south-east of Kintbury], where both are worked, the former furnishing the tile- clay, and the latter the brick-earth. The section is as follows in the westernmost yard." ^ (Fig. 5.) * "The Geology of the London Basin," p. 184. I Ibid., p. 184. I Ibid., p. 184. § lUd., p. 183. II Ibid., p. 179. ^ lUd., p. 182. READING BEDS. 59 Fig. 5. — " Junction of the London Glay and the Beading Beds at Eintbury Brickyard. (W. Whitaker.) Ft. Tough ferruginous-brown clay. At about 16 inches from the bottom occasional flattened con- cretionary nodules of clay-iron- stone, about 3 inches thick, under a layer of scattered flint- pebbles (6) which are for the most part small and white. Ferruginous-brown sandy clay or clayey sand - about Black clay ; very hard, homo- geneous and when dry sphtting up very unevenly with a sort of oonchoidal fracture - - about Line of flint-pebbles. At the outcrop this bed forms a con- tinuous band of clay-ironstone 4 or 5 inches thick, with small imbedded flints. Greenish loamy clay, passing downwards into more decided clay at the depth of about 3 feet 10 Irregular bed of sand 5 Grey and brown sandy clay passing into slightly mottled clay - - 25 Red tile-clay 5 Fiue sand - - -3 Bed of Ostrea beUovacina, 3 inches. Fhnts and pebbles in green sand and clay 1 " Chalk. [Mr. Bristow remarks of the junction in the Fig. 5. large chalk-pit that ' the surface of the chalk ap- pears to be worn quite smooth and even in some parts, while in others it is shghtly worn into in- equalities and potholes.'] " By the side of a lane, nearly half a mile south-east of Kintbury Church, there is a chalk-pit, in which a few feet of the bottom-bed of the Reading Series was seen overlying the Chalk."* In another yard, to the south-west of that just noticed, between 20 'and 30 feet of coloured sands and clays are exposed, and there is mottled clay lower down. Mr. Bennett estimates the total thickness of the Reading Beds at Pebble Hill to be between 50 and 60 feet. At Kirby House, near Inkpen, a well-boring made in 1899 passed through. 75 feet of the mottled clays, and sands, with green, shelly beds at the base. Allowing for the high dip (26°) at that spot, the * "'The Geology of the London Basin," p. 183. Fig. 4 of the Memoir on Sheet 12, and fig. 47 of " The Geology of the London Basin." See also Proc. Geol. Assoc., vol. xvii., 1902, p. 389. 60 EOCENE. true thickness of the Series is about 66 feet, or a few feet more than at Shaw Kiln, seven and a half miles to the north-east. (See Appen- dix A.) " At the north end of Little Common there is a good section in a sand- pit, with hard white mottled clay on yellow, white, and rose-coloured sands ; the whole presenting a striking resemblance to some of the variegated sands belonging to the Middle Eocene strata, in the cliffs at Alum Bay in the Isle of Wight." * There is a little outlier of sand at Hungerford Park ; a patch of sandy and grey loamy beds to the north-east and to the south-west of Sanham Green, and another at a lower level, on the main road to the west of the latter place. " At Hopgrass Kiln, less than a mile south of Chilton Foliat, there is a small but remarkable outlier, which does not rise above the level of the surrounding Chalk, but is in a basin worn out in that rock after the deposition of the overlying beds, like a huge pipe. The clays and sands have been much worked for the manu- facture of bricks and tiles, and there are many sections. The dips, ranging from 5° to nearly 90°, are convergent, whilst in a chalk-pit just to the south of the chief section the lines of flint are horizontal. The following is the section : — Ft. ' A little hght-coloured mottled plastic clay. Coarse brown sand, with thin seams of brown clay in very small pieces (possibly the remains of fossils), and bands of black sand and soft sandstone 6 f Brown and pink clay - J \ Whitish plastic clay - - J /Pale grey loam ... 1 I Line of ironstone. {Brown and buff loam and sand, with a line of iron- stone below the middle IJ Line of ironstone. Whitish plastic clay - IJ Dull purplish-brown clay, stiff but not plastic, much like London Clay - - about 7 White sand, not sunk through, with occasional seams of pale clay in the upper part, at one part at least as much as - ... 8 Total over 26 " It is not likely that the white sand rests at once on the Chalk, so that the thickness of the Reading Beds may be safely estimated at 30 feet." t " South-west of Hungerford there is a large and well-marked outlier of the Beading Beds, capped by London Clay," extending over Stype Copse, Bagshot, Polesdown, Bird's Heath, and Newtown. On the south-east, owing to the sharp northward dip of the underlying Cretaceous beds, the outlier is not half a mile distant from the Upper Greensand of Shalboume ; northwards the dip soon decreases, and the Tertiary beds become almost flat, and stilL further in the same direction it is reversed, being at a small angle to the south, as is shown in Kg. [6].t * " The Geology of the London Basin," p. 182. t Ibid., pp. 178-179. t P. 175. READING BEDS. 6] Fig. 6. — " Section (along a zigzag line) through the Upper Qreensand Irdier of Shaibourne [Vale of Earn], and tlie Tertiary OuUier of Bagshot(W. Whilaker).* Riever Shaibourne. Bagshot. Stype Copse. Reading Beds. Scale (vertical and horizontal), an inch to a mile." a. Lower Bagshot pebble-bed. d. Chalk. 0. London Clay. e. Upper Greensand. c. Reading Beds. /. Gault. " At the brickyard near Bagshot Farm the section was not very clear in 1859, when the following beds were to be seen : — / Brown clay. I Basement-bed. Bluish-grey and brown clay, with lines London Clay. < of ironstone, sometimes containing flint-pebbles ; at j the base a line of ironstone and pebbles, large and " small. f Light-brown sand, often clayey. \ Clay found beneath. " In a field south of North Standen Farm there are some large blocks of pudding-stone, which seem to be in place, and are perhaps hardened masses of the pebble-beds of this formation." f Sir Joseph Prestwich gives the following general section of the beds at Bag- shot Hill, which is " made up " from a few small pits and road-side cuttings : — Ft. " Flint-pebbles in clay and sand, some loose blocks of pudding- stone on surface - - - - 3 Laminated yellow clays and sands - - about 12 Dark mottled clays, light-green with bright red - - 35 Imperfect iron-sandstone and sand - - - 2 Yellow sand and green clayey sand, with a thin seam of oysters at base ... ... -8? Ferruginous clay with small flint-pebbles - - - ■ i " Chalk with a very uneven surface. " The Ostrea hdlovacina is the only fossil found in this section, which is merely exposed in part, and is given approximately." + With reference to the above section Mr. Whitaker remarks ("London Basin," p. 177) : — " Perhaps the top bed may be the basement-bed of the London Clay, but even then the thickness seems excessive." "In a brickyard about three-quarters of a mile east of Great Bedwyn the general section, shown by many small pits, is as follows : — " Basement-bed of the London Clay : — Brown loam and clayey sand with a line of large black rounded flints at the bottom." Mr. Whitaker was told that oyster-shells had been found in this bed. " About 7 feet." * Fig. 6 of the Memoir on Sheet 12, and fig. 46 of " The Geology of the London Basin," p. 175. The spelling of the names of places has been altered in pccordance with that on the new series map. t "The Geology of the London Basin," p. 176. X Quart. Journ. Oeol. Soc, vol. x., 1854, p. 85. 62 EOCENE. / Stiff brown and light blue mottled clay, not plastic, but rather like London Clay ; used for making tiles. Lower part more sandy, and full of ' lime-wash ' or ' race ' (small roundish Reading / calcareous concretions). Many feet thick. Beds. I Sand, with a little loam. Sometimes as much as 12 feet. Very hard clay. Sand. (Shown in pits lower down.) " The thickness of the beds could not be measured, owing to the small size of the pits ; neither is it certain that the above is a perfect series." Just south of this brickyard is another, in whicTi Mr. Whitaker saw (in 1859) " a junction of the basement-bed of the London Clay with sand of the Read- ing Beds ; not with clay, as in the former section." Here he found " but one pebble in the basement-bed, whilst in the other brickyard there were many." " At Polly Farm, south-west of the above, there is a third brickyard. The upper pit is a shallow section in brown and pale blue mottled clay (London Clay), [capped at one part by a few inches of brown sand (? Bagshot)]. The lower and larger pit gives the following section [1859] : — Ft. /Light-brown and grey sandy clay and clayey sand, passing into the bed below - about 10 Light bluish-grey clay- - „ 5 Reading Beds. I Bluish-grey or slate-coloured clay, with a bed of brown ' sand (4 to 8 inches thick) at top, and three others at intervals - - - - about 5 light-coloured sand - - - said to be 2 Beneath which strong blue clay has been found." *■ " Just south of the farm there is a pit in brown and yellow sand, [and Mr. Whitaker was told that] 20 feet of sand had been f o\md here above the Chalk ; whilst at the kiln, which is at a higher level, that rook has been touched 4 feet from the surface, notwithstanding that, according to the general dip of the beds, it should there be deeper. This seems to show some slight dis- turbance, perhaps an uplift on the north-east. " There are but few sections [in this part of the outlier] but the junction of the Reading Beds with the Chalk is in many parts well shown by swallow- holes. In Stype Copse are many of these ; there is a line of them along the valley that runs through the middle of the outlier in a north and south direction, from which it is clear that the Chalk is no great distance from the surface in the bottom of that valley ; and there are others near Bird's Heath Farm and Newtown." •]• " At Castle Hill, south of Great Bedwyn, there is an outlier of the Reading Beds, probably capped by London Clay at the top of the hiU, about a mile and a quarter from north to south, but nowhere half a mile from east to west. It is well marked, the Tertiary beds, for the most part covered with wood, rising sharply from the Chalk." J On the eastern side of Castle Copse, about half a mUe south-east of Brail Farm, a chalk-pit shows : — Feet. Mottled brown sandy clay ■ - - 2^ Fine greyish-green sand with a few small flint-pebbles, and con- cretions of bright red iron peroxide and of white, granular race - 2J Chalk : with a few small cylindrical pipes, but no borings. " Near by on the west another equally well-marked outlier forms the wooded hiU that stretches for three-quarters of a mile from the northern end of Wilton Common nearly to Brail Farm. * " The Geology of the London Basin," p. 176. t Ihid., p. 176. J lUd., p. 177. READING BEDS. 63 On the lino of hill westward of the Bedwyns there is a larger outlier, of Bagshot Sand, London Clay, and Reading Bods, forming the high ground from Chisbury to the south-eastern part of Tottenham Park, a distance of about 2J miles. The boundary is for the most part well-marked, and along it there are many swallow-holes, especially within a radius of half a mile from Stock Farm, to the west of Great Bedwyn. At the southern end, near the C!halk escarpment, the dip is fairly sharp ; but it soon lessens north- wards, the beds becoming flat or nearly so."* Down the northern flank of the hill just south of Stock Farm deep drains were made in 1859, and Mr. Whitaker " was fortunate enough to see the work in progress, for without that advantage it would have been very difficult to have made out the structure of this middle part of the outlier. The following beds were cut into, from the top of the hill downwards : — " Lower Bagshot Sand. — Brown and buff, partly clayey. " London Clay. — The upper part sandy, the rest stiff, blue and brown mottled, with many pieces of ironstone, one of which contained a cast of an oyster shell, with large flint-pebbles at the lowest part (basement- bed). ' Reading Beds. — Variously coloured mottled plastic clay with a little sand. " Chalk. — The reconstructed bed noticed before [p. 38] at the junction. "This section shows that neither the London Clay nor the Reading Beds are here more than from 12 to 15 feet thick, and therefore that the Bagshot Sand is only 25 or 30 feet from the Chalk."t " At Chisbury Camp the road-cutting on the southern side of the hUl is in sands with a little clay, from the top of the Chalk up to the gravel that caps the hill, altogether some [60 or 70] feet. As it has been shown that in the middle part of the outlier the Reading Beds are not more than 15 feet thick, it seems unlikely that here they should bo [four] times that thicknoss."j Mr. Whitaker thinks, therefore, " that the sands of Chisbury Barrow do not belong wholly to that formation, but rather that the upper beds, which look much like those above the London Clay at Stock Farm, are also like them in age, that is to say are a part of the Lower Bagshot Sand, which formation therefore would seem here to rest on the Reading Beds, the London Clay having thinned out." He would not, however, " have coloured this sand as Lower Bagshot on the Geological Survey Map had not that step been confirmed by a section in an outlier further west, whore a thin pebble-bod, representing probably the basement-bed of the London Clay, is all that separates the Reading Beds from an overlying mass of sand, that may fairly be classed as Lower Bagshot. " A little west of the above are three smaller outliers, Tottenham House standing on one, from below which the Chalk rises sharply to the south ; another covers a great part of Bodwjm Common, but is much hidden by a clayey drift ; and between these is a smaller one, barely separated from the first. Between Bedwyn Common and Savemake Lodge § there is a patch of sand thickly overgrown with wood. "A more important outlier [only in part within this district] stretches along the hill north-westward for a mile and a quarter from the Chalk escarpment at the western part of Terrace HiU, where the Chalk rises up sharply from beneath the Tertiary beds, whilst as usual the dip soon decreases towards the north. * "The Geology of the London Basin," p. 177. t Ihid., loc. cit. I Li original text, " some 40 or 50 feet, .... three times that thick- ness." The older one-inch Ordnanca Map, used in the first geological survey, is not contoured. § " Savernake House " on old^map. 64 READING BEDS. " The section seen in different parts of the pit at the brickyard on the eastern side of the outlier (facing Leigh Hill) .... did not show (in 1859) an un- broken series from top to bottom, but the upper part was clear, and the follow- ing was the reading that [Mi. Whitaker] was led to adopt, and which also was agreed to by Professor Bamsay, on inspecting the district : — " Lower Bagshot Beds. — White and light-coloured sands with thin seams of pipe-clay ; about 12 or 15 feet. " Basement-bed of the London Clay. — A continuous layer, a few inches thick, of black- flint-pebbles of various sizes, many large. "Betiding Beds. — Sands and mottled plastic clays. Plastic clay, chiefly green, has been found above the Chalk ; but whether the bottom-bed occurs here or not is uncertain ; about 15 feet."* There are now, unfortunately, no clear sections of the Eocene Beds to be seen in the park- and forest-lands to the west of Great Bedwjrti. The few small exposures observed in the old brick- yards show, however, that the Eeadiag Beds suffer no general lithological change, as they approach their western Hmit in the London Basin, such as might be expected if their thinning were due to increasing distance from the sources of their constituents,, or to the proximity of the shore of the body of water in which they were laid down. It is possible that the erosion which preceded and accompanied the formation of the Basement-Bed of the London Clayf removed a greater thickness of Reading Beds in this neighbourhood than in the country to the east. * " The Geology of the London Basin," p. 178. t Prestwich, Quart. Journ. Oeol. Soc., vol. vi., p. 277. 65 CHAPTER VIII EOCENP]. London Clay. Though the London Clay occurs over a considerable area-'in the southern and eastern parts of the district much of it is hidden by the succeeding Bagshot Beds and by drift. As a whole, the for- mation has Httle economic value. The lowest beds, however, are commonly worked with the sands and clays of the Reading Series in the brickyards, and are therefore more often displayed than those above. In well-sections the clay is usually massive and of a blue tint — sometimes almost black. Near the surface it is invariably weathered to a rusty-brown colour, and intersected by irregular, closely-set joints. Grey calcareous concretions, sometimes in the form of septaria, and nodules of iron-pyrites, are not uncommon ; and ill-preserved shells of Nautilus, Gardium, Ditrupa, and other marine organisms are occasionally encountered. The lowest beds, collectively termed the " Basement-Bed," are, as usual, distinctly arenaceous, and contain concretions of clay-ironstone, thin impersistent bands of impure, flaggy Ume- stone, together with one or more seams of flint-pebbles at the bottom. Through sometimes of very small size and easily to be overlooked, the pebbles often attain considerable dimensions — the largest example seen by the writer (at Kintbury) measuring about 12 X 6 X 6 inches. They are often rather widely spaced, and appear in sections as a single row of inclusions rather than as a continuous band. The junction with the Reading Beds is even, or slightly undu- late, and when the highest member of that series happens to be a loam (as is often the case) there is an appearance of a passage from one formation to the other. The London Clay is about 60 feet thick to the south of New- bury, but thins northward to less than 20 feet near Oare, and westward to less than 15 feet near Great Bedwyn, beyond which latter village it is missing, or doubtfully represented by a thin bed of flint-pebbles at the junction of the Reading and Lower Bagshot Beds. On the north of the Kennet, the high ground extending from Clay Hill and Henwick northward to Grimsbury Camp consists in great part of this formation, capped by the Bagshot Beds, and overspread by drift-gravel. At Shaw Kiln, where the lower beds are well exposed, the following fossils have been found : — " Verte- brae of fish, Fusus ? Buccinum ? Nucula, Pectuncidus, Gar- dium, Panopwa, Modiola."* The loamy Basement-Bed here rests * Professor T. Rupert Jones's " Lecture on the Gteological History of the Vicinity of Newbury," 1854. p. 37. 9114. F Q6 EOCENE. partly on the mottled clay, partly on yellow and grey sands, of the Reading Series. The little outlier of Oare Common, to the south of the village, is covered by a tMn but apparently -undisturbed mass of Bagshot Sand. Mr. Whitaker has remarked that although the Bagshot Beds occurriug to the north of Newbury are of but small import- ance in themselves "there presence is theoretically of much moment," as enabUng one to "judge of the thickness of the London 'ciay— that tMckness being of course the vertical distance between the bottom of the Bagshot Beds and the top of the Reading Beds. It is thus shown that at Coldash and Bucklebury Com- mons the London Clay, which near London is more than 400 feet thick, is comparatively thin, and at Oare Common has dwindled down to less than 20 feet."* According to Mr. F. J. Bennett this division of the Eocene is no more than 12 feet thick at Little Hungerford (? Pheasant's Hill), to the south- east of Oare. London Clay forms the higher part of the sharply-conical eminence of Oareborough Hill, and the more elevated portions of Curridge Common, to the south. On the western slope of High Wood, which covers part of the latter outlier, the Basement-Bed was exposed in making a road. The same formation is represented also in the higher part of the Snelsmore outlier, where the lowest beds were to be seen at Donnington Kiln and other places near the southern end of the Common. On the large Reading outlier extending north-westward from Speen to Wickham Mr. Bennett observed signs of the Basement- Bed beneath the gravel ia many places, (e.g., a little south-east of Stockcross church ; north-east of Harrod Farm, and at Sole Common) ; and the same bed " in a very confused state " was noted by Mr. Whitaker above the kiln, half a mile east of Wickham Church. On ike south side of the River Kennet, the western portion of the maia mass, and some thirteen or fourteen outliers of the London Clay, occur ia this district. The well at Greenham Lodge, a little more than a mile to the south-east of Newbury, traversed 196 feet of beds between the surface of the ground and the top of the Chalk. Of this thickness Messrs. J. H. Blake and W. Whitakerf assign 60 feet 10 inches to the London Clay. In a tUe-yard called Eyles' (long since closed) near the cemetery at the southern end of Newbury, Professor T. Rupert Jones| noted the following fossils in the lower part of the London Clay : — • Rostellaria (srruill) Natica Teredina Turritella Vermicularia Cardium Pleuiotoma Ditrupa Pectunoulus " A well was made in a cottage garden, by the four cross-roads, at Enbome Street, during the simimer of 1859, through dark grey clay, -with nodules of iron-pyrites and septaria, for 30 feet, at which depth small black pebbles * " The Geology of the London Basin," p. 310. t " The Water Supply of Berkshire," 1902, p. 62. J Op. supra cit, p. 39. LONDON CLAY. 67 London aay. Reading Beds. were met with, and the beds assumed a more sandy character. The pebbles were most probably from the basement-bed. A few fossils were brought up with the clay from the bottom of the well, consisting of Turritdla, Neritina, &o. Nautilus accompanied the septaria. At another cottage, a short distance to the westward, the solid clay extended to a depth of 50 or 60 feet, and the bottom of the well reached the greensand, with Ostrea Bellovacina, which occurs at the base of the Reading Series." * "At the intersection of the road from Newbury Wash with that from Skinner's Green and Crockham Heath, the junction with the Reading Beds as seen in the sand-pit, is as follows (Pig. 7). Fig. 1. — " Junction of the London Clay and the Reading Beds, between Skinner's Qreen and Crockham Heath. (W. Whitaker). f Ft. - a. Pale yellow top-soD containing a few rounded and angular flints - IJ 6. Pale ferruginous-brown clay - - - - 2J c. Basement-bed, small, white, and black flint- pebbles - - - J d. Pale greenish-white clay mottled with red, and passing into the bed below 2 \ e. Pale yellowish-white sand." { " There is an outlier of London Clay in the district south of the Kennet, at Bnbome. In the road from the church to the ' Craven Arms ' the jimc- tion with the Reading Beds is shown in the cutting. The uppermost bed of the latter consists, as in many other instances, of a somewhat paler clay than the main mass of the overlying London Clay, and is based upon sand." § The section at Pebble Hill, near Kintbury, has already been described (p. 59). " The most westerly point of the main mass of the London Clay (in the London Basin) is near Inkpen in Berkshire, about three miles beyond the boundary between that county and Hampshire. Hence the boundary-line runs E.S.E., closely following that of the Reading Beds. The outcrop is often very narrow, from the comparative thinness of the formation itself, and from the comparative sharp- ness of the dip, both of which cause outliers of the Bagshot Beds to come on very near to the Chalk. In many parts, however, these overlying sands have been denuded away, and then the London Clay has an uninterrupted outcrop across the ' basin.' " |( In the well at Kirby House, near Inkpen, the thickness of the London Clay (allowing for the dip) is about 46 feet. " On the large outlier of the Reading Beds south-west of Hungerford, there are two outliers of London Clay. In the eastern there is a section of the basement-bed [see p. 61], and the London Clay may be seen in the road- outting south of Bagshot. This outlier stretches some way south of Poles- down, but its northerly extension in Stype Copse is doubtful. * " The Geology of the London Basin," p. 296. t Fig. 3 of the Memoir on Sheet 12, and Fig. 48, p. 183 of that on " The London Basin." t " The Geology of the London Basin," p. 183. § Ibid., p. 299. |l Ibid., p. 279. 9114. F 2 ()8 EOCENE. " In the patch just to the west, which extends from Bird's Heath to New- town, there are two sections of the basement-bed, and one in the London Clay itself [see pp. 61-62]." * Castle Hill, south of Great Bedwyn, is capped by London Clay, but there are no sections. At Wilton kiln (now the Dods Down Brickworks), at the southern end of the wooded hill of Wilton Brail, Mr. Whitaker saw " about four feet of stiff bluish-grey and brown London Clay with a layer of ironstone containing casts of : — Nautilus, Calyptrcea, Fusus (or Pleurotoma), Cardium, and Ostrea." f In recent years the section here has been greatly enlarged and now shows : — - fl. Stifi brown clay, full of black and white flint-pebbles up to 6 inches in diameter 3 Lower I 6. Alternate beds pi light fawn and gre3rish-brown clay (im- Bagshot \ pure pipe-clay) and buff sand 4 Beds, .5. Buff sand, with seams of hght clay ; layer of flint-pebbles at /4. Grey, argillaceous sand with brown mottlings, passing down into red-brown ferruginous sand and loam ; with seams of small and medium-sized flint-pebbles at base - 5 London ( 3. Dark, grey-brown, unctuous clay with regular joints 10 Clay. 2. Dark grey sandy clay - - 1 1. Fine, green or grey-green loam ; firm and strongly cal- S careous towards the top, - seen 8 The lower beds are so unlike any to be seen elsewhere in the district that the writer feels some doubt as to the correctness of the above grouping. The beds numbered (7), (6), and (5) are certainly referable to the Bagshot Series — the first-mentioned being somewhat disturbed. No. (4), which is prob- ably the bed in which Mr. Whitaker observed the iron-stone and casts of fossils, may be safely assigned to the London Clay ; and, in view of the known attenua- tion of that formation in this neighbourhood, might be regarded as its sole representative in this section. Yet the stifi: brown clay (3), in its homogenity and persistence, more nearly approaches the London Clay than the clays of the Reading Series. The green loam (1) is the most abnormal feature of the section. The green colouration is not that of the Reading Bottom-Bed, and so far from being confined to definite grains (as is usually the case with that Bed), it is evenly diffused. The uniform appearance of the green loam throughout the long exposure of the pit-face; the presence in its upper parts of a notable quantity of calcareous matter, and its freedom from cur- rent-bedding, are the principal grounds for assigning it to the London Clay rather than to the Reading Beds. Despite their closeness to the Kingsclere anticline, the Eocene strata in this section are sensibly horizontal. " At the larger outlier west of the Bedwyns the London Clay covers the Eeading Beds for the greater part of its length, but with a rather doubtful boundary. The section shown by drains down the hill-side south' of Stock Farm has already been described " (p. 63). { In this, " the most westerly patch of the formation in the London Basin, it is only about 15 feet thick," and under Chisbury Camp, at the northern end- of the outlier, there seems to be nothing between the Bagshot Beds and the Reading Series. * " The Geology of the London Basin," p. 279. f Ibid.,loc. cit. J Ibid.,loc. cit. LONDON CLAY. 69 Mr. Jukes -Browne tliinks that the westward t hinnin g of the London Clay, as a formation, in this district is more apparent than real, and that " the persistence of the basement-bed . . . below the Bagshot Beds . . . proves that sands replace the brown clays . . . ."* The present writer, however, has failed to observe any signs of this lateral replacement ; and had such been apparent at the date of the first geological survey it is unlikely that they would have escaped Mr. Whitaker's notice. In sections, the clean, pipe clay-seamed sands of the Lower Bagshots are quite distinct from the more muddy sands and loams of the London Clay ; while at, or a few feet above, the junction of the two formations there are generally one or two layers, and sometimes a thick bed, of flint- pebbles, pointing to a change in the physical conditions, and pos- sibly to a stratigraphical break.. Moreover, the sudden disap- pearance of the London Clay under Chisbury Camp is suggestive of pre-Bagshot erosion, by which the Basement-Bed would natur- ally be the last portion of the formation to be affected ; and the area wherein the London Clay is now represented by its Basement- Bed (or some part of it) alone is not so large as to warrant the assertion that that Bed has any greater measure of persistence than is accounted for by its relatively sheltered position. Ac- cording to Mr. Whitaker (see above p. 63) the London Clay, which is still about 12 or 15 feet thick at Stock Farm, has dwindled to " a continuous layer, a few inches thick, of black flint-pebbles of various sizes, many large," near Leigh Hill, about two miles farther west. In view of the very common occurrence of pebbles at the base of the Bagshot Sands it is not improbable that the layer observed at the latter locality is actually of Bagshot age, and that the larger rounded flints in it are merely London Clay derivatives. In the country to the west of Reading the London Clay seems to thin most rapidly towards the north-west — that is to say, in a direction opposed to that of the dip of the rocks on the northern side of the London Basin — and one is tempted to speculate whether this attenuation may not be due, either to a renewal of the earlier tilting-movement indirectly responsible for the bevelling-down of the higher zones of the Chalk in the same area, or to the initiation of the disturbances which ultimately produced the London Basin syncline. With reference to the latter conjecture it may be men- tioned that there is no definite evidence of a thinning of the London Clay towards the south, either in the Hungerford district or in the adjoining country on the east. To Dr. Irving " the great attenuation " of this division in the western part of the London Basin, "as shown by a comparison of its thickness at Highclere with its thickness at Aldershot and Ash (in Surrey) seems to suggest a partial elevation of the Kingsclere axis during the London Clay * " The Building of the British Isles," 2nd Ed., 1892, p. 297. 70 London cla^. period ; "* though why it should do so is not eaay to perceive, since the places mentioned are on a south-east-north-west line parallel to the axis of that fold. The further statement by the same author, that " the higher dip of the Chalk at Highclere (30° N.) as compared with the more, moderate dip of the Bagshot Beds (10° N.) [near the same place] affords evidence of very considerable pre-Bagshot elevation of the Kingsclere axis "■\ is a Remarkable onCj in view of the facts (1) that the spot where the inclination of the Bagshots was measui'ed is a mile farther from the axis of the fold than that at which the greater dip of the Chalk was noticed, and (2) that the diagram by which the remarks above quoted are illustrated shows the diver- gence to be due to this difference in the points of observation. Attention is directed to these matters for the reason that Dr. Irving has alluded, in a later work,t to the " diminished thickness of the London Clay where it lies against the flank of the great anticlinal " of Kingsclere, in such a manner as to lead the student to suppose that the existence of that disturbance in pre-Bagshot times is an established fact, which is not the case. * " On the Stratigraphy of the Bagshot Beds of the London Basin," QimH. Journ. Oeol. Soc, vol. xliv., 1888, p. 181. t Op. cit, p. 181. J " The Geological History of the Thames Valley," Science Gossip, May and June, 1891. 71 CHAPTER IX. EOCENE. Lower Bagshot Beds. This division of the Eocene occurs in the form of outliers of the main body, which is situated farther to the east. These detached masses consist chiefly of well stratified and rather fine-grained micaceous sands, ranging in colour from pure white through ashy- grey and buff, to rich yellow and brownish red. Interbedded with the sands there are subordinate bands of dully-mottled, greyish- brown and other tinted clay and loam (the former sometimes laminated), and thin seams of pale grey, rather sandy, pipe-clay. Flint-pebbles are common in the lower beds. The thin bands and layers in which they normally occur are liable to rather rapid and considerable expansions, and as the lenticular masses thus formed yield more slowly to detritive agencies than the surrounding sands their exposure at the surface is always marked by a special feature — usually a steep-sided ridge, or hillock, with an even crest. No argillaceous group of sufficient importance to deserve the name " Ramsdell Clay " has been observed in this district, though such a group occurs at HoUington, just beyond the southern border, about three miles south-east of West Woodhay.* Save for a few impressions of leaves and a httle carbonaceous matter, the Lower Bagshots in this area seem uniformly unfossili- ferous ; but from their general character, and from the palseonto- logical evidence obtained in the coujitry to the east, it is inferred that they were laid down in a broad and shallow lagoon or estuary. Their maximum thickness here is probably about 100 feet. The highest measurement yet obtained is 80 feet (or thereabouts), in the Kirby House well, before mentioned. In the few clear exposures of their base the Lower Bagshots are sensibly conformable to the London Clay ; yet they overlap, or overstep, that formation near the western limit of the district, and almost certainly did so in the Berkshire Downs area, on the north. " The boundary between the Lower Bagshot Beds and the London Clay is generally marked by the wet and rushy nature of the ground, in consequence of the water which filters through the permeable sands of the former formation being thrown out at the surface by the clays of the latter." It " presents a very serrated and indented outline, conforming itself to the irregularities of the ground ; the Bagshot Beds, wMch form the escarpments of the higher grounds, being cut through by numerous combes and valleys down to the London Clay."f North of the Kennet " there is a large irregular outlier occupying * See White, Proc. Oeol. Assoc, vol. xvii., 1902, pp. 394-95. t " The Geology of the London Basin," pp. 309-10. 72 EOCENE. the higher grounds of Cold Ash and Bucklebuiy Commons, which for the most part forms heathland. The beds dip towards the south at a small angle, corresponding with the gentle inclination of the surface of the ground in that direction."* On Cold Ash Common the Bagshots are much obscured by gravel, and no good sections have been seen. In the road cutting between Cold Ash and Ashmore Green there is red-brown and greyish, sandy loam, and a little yellow sand is exposed in many places on the higher side-slopes of the plateau-ridge between the former place and Grimsbury Camp. " By the side of the road west of Holly Wood, N.N.W. [? a mile and a half north] of Thatcham Mr. Aveline saw ' some conglomerate-stones ' [pebbly sarsensj, which had been ' grubbed up in the wood when it was being cut down.' He was informed that ' some of great size had been found, and that they were taken up nearly in one line.' "f On Oare Common there are some small pits in fine, brown and yellow sands. The strip of pebbly loam and clay at Bussock Camp, which has been mapped as Lower Bagshot Beds, is regarded by Messrs. H. W. Monckton and R. S. Herries J as a rearranged deposit of post-Bagshot age. As this pebbly-loam seems to have been the subject of a contro- versy among the members of the Geologists' Association about the year 1889, it will be well to give Mr. Bennett's brief note on the deposit verhatim. — " An outlier at Bussock Camp, north of New- bury, has been mapped from the presence of a pebble-bed there. I was told that on sinking a well four beds of pebbles were passed through." From a memorandum on the back of Mr. Bennett's six-inch field-map it may be gathered that the well referred to is at the keeper's house adjoining " The Lodge," at the southern end of the deposit, and that the " beds of pebbles " were separated by clay — probably rearranged London Clay. The material seen in the few poor exposures now discoverable is certainly not Bagshot Beds in situ, but the scarcity of sub- angular flints (which form the greater part of the drift-gravel im- mediately to the south) and the known northward attenuation of the London Clay in this part of the district, render it probable not only that the deposit is directly derived from a Lower Bagshot pebble-bed, but also that the pebble-bed referred to formerly existed not many feet above the present surface of the ground. The London Clay is shown to extend over a much wider area around Bussock Camp on the new one-inch map than on the old (Sheet 13). Assuming the revised boundaries to be the more accurate, there is room in some places for at least 20 feet of London Clay, beneath the re-arranged pebble-bed ; and 20 feet is about the full thickness * "The Geology of the Londo.i Basin," p. 210. t Geol. Survey Memoir on Sheet 12, 1862, p. 51. j " On some Bagshot Pebble Beds and Pebble Gravel," Proe. Oeol. Assoc., vol. xii., 1889, pp. 22-3. See also R. S. Herries, Ibid., vol. xi., 1889, p. xiii. LOWER BAGSHOT BEDf5. 73 K)l the formation in the Oare Common outlier, between two and three miles distant to the east-north-east. South of the Kennet, the moderately -high ground of Wash, Green- ham, and Crookham Commons forms a plateau, the higher part of which consists of a Lower Bagshot outlier thickly spread with gravel. " The outline of this outlier is very irregular. The sands may be traced roimd the flank of the hiUs, where they occasionally make their appearance from beneath the overlying drift-gravel, the dry svu'face of which presents a striking contrast to the wet and swampy nature of the ground upon the impermeable London Clay. "The sand is shown in several places, amongst others in a cutting by the side of the road from Sandleford, south of the ' Old Harrow Inn.' The beds consist there of whitish sand, becoming hard and ferruginous in the upper part, and having an irregular surface covered with drift-gravel, composed of rounded and sub-angular flints. There are also traces of white pipe-clay, and the sand beneath the gravel is sometimes of a red colour." * The well at Greenham Lodge passed through 43 feet 2 inches of loam, blue clay, and sand with two thin beds of " stone " (? sarsen), all of which have been referred to the Bagshots. [See Appendix A.] Another sinking, at Newbury Workhouse, a mile and a quarter to the west, entered " a bed of white pipe-clay containing leaves of plants .... at a depth of 30 feet from the surface." Mr. WMtaker remarks that — " These beds correspond precisely with the pipe-clay deposits of the Isle of Purbeck, which are so rich in vegetable remains, and which there, as well as at Bournemouth and in the Isle of Wight (at Alum Bay), form a part of the Lower Bagshot Beds." f Orange-coloured sand is exposed in a pit on the western side of the high road at Sandpit HiU, and there are a number of small excavations in ferru- ginous sand with loam and pipe-clay seams round the borders of Wash Common. There is a small outlier at Enborne, and a succession of sandy patches on the northern side of the Enborne VaUey to the west of Enborne Street. " The sands which occiu' at the south side of Headley Common are based upon white clays, which furnish the bricks that' are made there." J No feature of any importance has been noted in the sandy outhers of Syd- monton Common, Newtown Common, Burley Wood, and West Woodhay, to the south of the Enborne. " An irregularly-shaped outlier extends over Inkpen Common. The nature of the deposits is displayed in some sand-pits and natural sections at the western extremity of the mass, and again ia the shallow openiags in the fir plantations, where pale pipe- clays have been dug to the depth of about a yard, for supplying some potteries in the immediate neighbourhood, where a coarse ware is made from them. In the sand-pits at the north-eastern corner of the Common these beds consist of ferruginous, white and yellow sand, with numerous black carbonaceous spots, lines, and * " The Geology of the London Basin," p. 312. t Ibid., loo. cit. % Ibid., loc. cit. 74 teOCENE. patches ; and the details of the section, in descending order, are as follows : — "White, angular, and sub-angular gravel. / Black carbonaceous clayey sand, 2 inches. White clay, a good deal spotted with iron ; generally white, but brown in some places and in others crimson ; the whole Lower I forming a red-mottled clay which at first sight might be mis- Bagshot ■) taken for similar beds belonging to the Woolwich and Reading Beds. Series. White and yellowish-white sand acquiring a ferruginous-brown coating on the outer part of the mass." * In a pit at Robbins Hole, near the schools, seven furlongs north- east of Inkpen church, Mr. Bennett noted some greenish sand which may, he thinks, belong to the Bracklesham Beds. That it is a dark yellow ferruginous sand with numerous grains of glau- conite is probably the most that can be said of it. The occurrence of such grains in Lower Bagshot Beds is not unexampled, and this particular deposit, which is exposed on the side of a small valley, seems to pass beneath the loams and sands of Lower Bag- shot aspect forming the higher ground to the east and west. If the Bracklesham Beds are present anywhere in the Inkpen Common outlier it should be in the neighbourhood of Upper Green and Kirby House, farther to the south. In the well made at Kirby House, in 1899, 90 feet of sands, mottled loams, and clays, and a thin bed of very hard brown sand- stone (? sarsen), were found between the drift and the London Clay. ^Allowing for the strong dip (26°), the true thickness of these beds is probably about 80 feet. The site of the boring is close to the road on the east of Kirby House, about one furlong from the outcrop of the Chalk to the south, and rather more than half a mile from the axis of the Kingsclere-Pewsey anticline in the same direction. Until the boring was made there was little or nothing to show the age of the rocks beneath the soil at or near this spot, and while on the old one-inch Geolo- gical Map (Sheet 12) these are coloured as London Clay, on the new (Sheet 267) they are coloured as Reading Beds. Mr. H. B. Woodward, who examined the ground after the well had been made, has suggested to the writer that the Reading Beds aie here duplicated by a strike-fault. On the northern limb of the Kingsclere anticline, however, the dip of the rocks is subject to rapid variations in strength ; a marked increase in the dip between Ku:by House and Inkpen is suggested by the local diminution of the width of the basset surface of the Upper Chalk ; and the iaclination of the beds in the Kirby House well i seems sufficiently high to account both for the presence and for the thickness of the Lower Bagshots there. (See Appendix, p. 124). * " The Geology of the London Basin," p. 311. LOWER BAGSHOT BEDS. 75 At Pebble Hill, south-east of Kintbury, the lowest beds of the Bagshots include a mass of flint-pebbles, from 10 to 15 feet thick, which, until recently, was well exposed in a pit on the eastern side of the high road across the summit of the hill. This remarkable bank of pebbles was formerly regarded as a drift de- posit, " but the complete absence of angiilar flints and of sarsen-stones, which abound in the neighbouring drifts both at higher and lower levels, serves to distinguish it from these last." * Mr. Bristow t observed a thin layer of buff and pale ferruginous-yeUow sands altemat!ng with seams of pipe- clay between the pebble-bed and the top of the London Clay. A thinner bed of flint-pebbles in yellow sand caps the London Clay outlier of Stype Copse and Polesdown in three places ; and the disturbed remnant of another (not mapped) occurs at Wilton Brail, and is seen in section above the sands and pipe-olays at the Dods Down Brickworks (iS'ee p. 6S.) The occurrence of Lower Bagshot Beds at Chisbury Camp and around Stock Farm, west of the Bedwyns, was noted above (pp. 62, 63, 68, 69). At the former locality the higher part of the road-cutting along Wans Dike, on the southern slope of the hill, shows yellow and reddish-brown sand and clay in alternate layers, with a few small ferruginous concretions. In an old brickyard at Leigh Hill, just beyond the western border of the district, there is a small exposure of orange and red, micaceous, flaggy sandstone, at the southern end of the overgrown clay-pit. The Lower Bagshot sands in this part of the London Basin ex- hibit no signs of that coarsening towards the west which is so noticeable in the beds of about the same age in the Hampshire Basin. * White " Excursion to Kintbmy, etc.," Proc. Oeol. Assoc, vol. xvii., 1902, p. 388. t " Geology of Parts of Berkshire and Hampshire," Mem. Oeol. Survey, 1862, p. 37. 76 CHAPTER X. POST-BAGSHOT DISTURBANCES : DRAINAGE FEATURES. Above the Lower Bagshot Beds there is, in this part of the country, a great break in the stratigraphical succession, and the much younger Drift deposits which remain to be considered give evidence of having been formed under conditions very different from those which prevailed during the accumulation of any of the solid rocks so far dealt with. Unlike those rocks, which were laid down in continuous, wide-spread sheets on the bottoms of seas and estuaries of varied depth and extent, the Drifts are local, subaerial and fluviatile accumulations, which betray in their distribution a more or less obvious relation to, or dependence on, the larger (if not the smaller) elements of the existing physiography. There is a strong probability, amounting almost to a certainty, that the Lower Bag- shots were here succeeded by the Bracklesham Beds and Upper Bagshots, both of which are still represented in the country covered by the Reading and Andover Sheets (268 and 283) on the east and south ; but the highest members of the Eocene System, and the entire Oligocene System, are absent from the London Basin, and no deposits referable to the Miocene have been recognised in the south of England. Though some of the Drift deposits may be of Pliocene age the bulk of them seem to belong to the Pleistocene and Recent periods, and many of them undoubtedly do so. After the deposition of the Bagshot Beds, and probably in post- Oligocene times, the rocks in this and in other parts of the south of England were subjected to lateral compression, and to differen- tial movements of uplift and subsidence, which changed their attitude over large areas. In Berkshire and North Wiltshire these disturbances are expressed mainly in the south-eastward dipping monocline of the Berkshire and Marlborough Downs, in the sharp anticlinal fold of Kingsclere and Pewsey, and in the intervening syncline of the London Basin. The first of these structural features is part of a regional tilting connected with some centre or axis of elevation lying far to the north-west. The history of this broad disturbance is unknown. It may have developed slowly during the middle and latter part of the Tertiary Era, but the overstep of the higher zones of the Upper Chalk by the Eocene Beds, and the thinning of the London Clay, on its southern flank, suggest earlier dates for its inception. The Kingsclere-Pewsey anticline, which passes through the Hungerford district on the south-west, belongs to an important system of parallel, and probably contemporaneous, flexures that extend across southern England and north-western France, and affect the Tertiary rocks of all ages down to the Lower Miocene POST-BAGSHOT DISTURBANCES. 77 (Sables de Sologne) in the latter country. The axis of the fold has a prevailing E.S.E.-W.N.W. trend, but describes a sweeping, northwardly-convex curve, which is diversified by bow-like salients and cuspate re-entrants. In the salient arcs the rocks on the southern side of the axis have been thrust northward and upward to a greater elevation than elsewhere, giving rise to dome-like protuberances whose truncation and excavation by detritive agencies have produced the well-known " elevation " valleys of Pewsey, Ham, and Kingsclere, and some smaller, nameless depres- sions of the same type. The transverse asymmetry which char- acterises the anticline throughout the greater part of its course is emphasised in the dome-structures above mentioned ; the divergent dips on the northern side of the axis there frequently exceeding 25°, while those on the southern usually range from r or 2° to 4°. In this area the syncline of the London Basin, though not un- accompanied by minor flexures, has yet a fairly simple structure, and the secondary troughs, such as occur within it farther to the east, are but slightly developed. Its axis lies close to, and follows the same curves as, that of the Kingsclere anticline. This syn- cline shares in the steady eastward pitch, or inclination, which affects all the rocks of the area, though often disguised by local dips. Some idea of the deformation of the rocks of the Hungerford district resulting from the movements above noted (t-nd from such minor disturbances as occurred during the formation of the Eocene strata) may be obtained from an inspection of the sketch-map Figure 4 (p. 44), where the contour -lines show the approximate altitude above sea -level of the base of the Reading Beds, at intervals of 50 feet. It is not imlikely that the Lower and Middle Eocenes had a slight eastward inclination from the beginning. The nature of the disturbances affecting the Upper Cretaceous rocks before the deposition of the Eeading Beds has already been inferred from the relation of the latter to the Chalk (p. 43). The larger elements of the existing topography of the piece of country with which this Memoir is concerned appear to be directly dependent on the dominant structural featiures ; though to what extent the northern and southern Chalk uplands owe their local relief to the relatively rapid wasting of the soft Eocene (and later ?) rocks formerly occurring near the main water-way of the intervening vale, is doubtful. Much uncertainty attaches, also, to the age of the principal physiographical features. It seems not improbable that the broad outlines of the present drainage system were marked out in the Miocene period, coincidently with the development of the Kingsclere fold. In this connection there are, however, two possibilities which must not be overlooked : Firstly, the possibility that this area was not respected by the early Pliocene (Diestian) Sea, which has left memorials of its invasion of 78 POST-BAGSHOT DISTUEBANCES. Englisli territory on the crest of the North Downs above Lenham, and in other places, at no great distance to the east. Secondly, the possibility that the dominant surface -slopes of the district — ^in so far they have a tectonic origin — are due, less to Miocene folding than to (the not always readily-distin- guishable) Pliocene warping, the importance of whose geographical effects is indicated by the wide range in altitude of the shallow- water marine sediments of Older Pliocene age on the southern borders of the North Sea Basin. Drainage Features. Some points of interest connected with the courses of the local streams will now be very briefly noticed. The northern tributaries of the Kennet are all, apparently, of the consequent type, their flow being, on the whole, in accordance with the dip of the rocks along their courses. The Lambourn doubtless owes its pre-eminence amongst these branches to the fact that it occupies a shaUow syncline. At Aldbourne, the stream of the same name seems to traverse a rather sharp flexure, the nature of which has not been ascertained. Though lying well- within the structural trough of the London Basin, the longitudinal Kennet nowhere coincides with the axis of that trough. From its source down to its junction with the Thames this river keeps distinctly to the north of the line of greatest depression, and responds to none of its curves. The discordance is sufficiently marked at Ramsbury, near the western border of the Hungerford district, but becomes much more pronounced below Newbury, and reaches its maximum near Henley, in Oxfordshire, where the combined waters of the Kennet and Upper Thames have cut down into the Middle Chalk, some 18 miles to the north of the synclinal axis. That the northern position of the upper reaches of the Kennet-Thames with reference to the axis of the London Basin was determined at a distant date is evident from the fact that where the river diverges most markedly from the axial path, there the sides of its valley are highest. If not too great, the discordance is too definite and persistent in its char- acter to be reasonably ascribed merely to loss of adjustment arising from the wandering of the stream on former flood-plains. No satisfactory interpretation of the phenomenon has as yet been put forward. The Bedwyn Brook, from about a mile below Crofton to its confluence with the Kennet at Hungerford, flows athwart the east-south-eastward dip of the rocks along its course ; a fact ren- dered apparent in the fleld near Bedwyn by the position of the slight feature marking the Bedwyn Stone-bed on either side of the valley. DRAINAGE DEVELOPMENT. 79 It has been suggested by the writer, elsewhere,* that the Enborne, which runs for about ten miles nearly parallel to the Kennet, originated in the eastward deflection and resultant combiQation of the lower reaches of several small, north or north-eastward-flowing streams tributary to the latter river, during the deposition of some of the gravels which cover the flat-topped hills in that neighbour- hood. A similar parallelism between main-stream and tributary, near their junction, is noticeable in other parts of this coxmtry, where old fluviatile gravels are well developed ; and it seems probable that its origin is, in some cases, the same as that of the familiar flood-plain phenomenon which it so closely resembles. The Bedwyn Brook at Wilton Water, and the east and west branches of the Shalboume above the narrow gap ia the Chalk ridge through which they escape from the Vale of Ham, are miniature examples of the autogenetic or subsequent type of stream ; each flowing along the outcropping edges of the soft, marly and loamy beds near the junction of the Lower Chalk and Upper Greensand. The breach in the Chalk ridge at Crofton, at the head of the Bedwyn Valley, is now, and has long been, the only channel by which the drainage of the Vale of Pewsey finds vent in a northward direction ; the greater part of the surface-water in that area beiag carried off to the south by the Avon and the CoUingbourne. In the Vale of Ham, on the other hand, while there are no drainage-outlets on the south, there are three on the north,f viz. : — the Shalboume gap, above noticed ; the gap traversed by the lane running from Inkpen, south-south-westward, to Bimgum Barn ; and that between Wilton Down and Harding Farm, to the south-west of Shalboume village. The second, or Inkpen gap is frequently used by a wet -weather stream generated on the Upper Greensand and running northward to the Kennet near Hungerford Park, or to swallow-holes on the line indicated. The third breach, ' near the south-western end of the Vale, usually contains only a small pond fed by runnels from the south. Such little interior drainage as now finds egress here is derived from an inconsiderable tract of moist ground forming a sort of shelf or terrace just inside the ridge. In the field it is evident that the stream which cut this gap is on the verge of extinction, almost all its catchment-area within the Vale having been appropriated by the Shalboume. A comparison of the geomorphological features of the Vale of Ham with those of the lesser depressions which occur on the Kingsclere -Pewsey anticline to the east, leads to the conclusion that the Vale itself has been formed, to a large extent, by the ex- pansion of the upper, cirque-Uke portions of several adjacent combes trenching the rocks on the northern limb of the fold. It * " On a Peculiarity in the Covirse of Certain Streams," etc., Proc. Geol. Assoc., vol. xvii., 1902, p. 408. •f The transverse ridge followed by the road from Upper Green to Walbury is here (somewhat arbitrarily) taken as the eastern limit of the Vale. 80 DRAINAGE DEVELOPMENT. is to be inferred that these combes were, in the beginning, small and numerous ; but that in the intersections resulting from their enlargement some of them were absorbed by their fellows ; and that when the more favourably situated individuals among the suivivors had been so far deepened near their heads as to cut into the yielding Lower Chalk under the crown of the arch their relatively rapid expansion, east and west, along the strike of that rock caused them to truncate their less fortunate neighbours, and to open out a continuous but unevenly-floored trench on the axis of the anticline: that trench subsequently being widened by the foundering and superficial wasting of the Middle and Upper Chalk escarpment on either side. Combes developed on the southern slope of the anticline also pas- sively assisted in the work of excavation, but were soon beheaded, and have left no deep indentations in the crest-line of the downs on that side of the Vale. The number of functional transverse valleys on the north was long ago reduced to three ; will shortly be further reduced to two, and eventually to one — ^viz., the Shalbourne Valley. The Shalbourne is the " master stream " of the Vale, and its drainage system is the only one that has reached the compara- tively-advanced stage of maturity which is implied by the posses- sion of branch-channels closely adjusted to the outcrop of the weakest rocks exposed in the area drained. 81 CHAPTEE XI. DEIFT. The superficial deposits indicated on Sheet 267 are, in descending order — Tufa. Alluvium. Brickearth. River and Valley Gravel. Clay-with-Flints. Plateau Gravel. As the Plateau, and River and Valley Gravels seem to form parts of a single series of deposits, some of which have certainly derived a large proportion of their constituents from the Clay-with- Flints, the last-named division will be considered first. Clay-with-Flints. This drift is typically developed on the summits and side-slopes of the Chalk downs to the north of the Kennet. In its simplest form it consists of a rather stifi, " cold," brown or red-brown, slightly sandy clay, containing angular flints, and smaller proportion of unbroken flint-nodules, with surfaces weathered white, or stained rich brown or black. The parts in contact with the Chalk are commonly of this character, the actua 1 junction with that rock being usually marked by a thin, black, manganiferous seam. More frequently, the clay is replaced by a brown loam with vague bands, stripes, or irregular bodies of a more arenaceous or agillaceous nature ; and sometimes by a material which may be fairly described as loamy sand. The pro- portion of flints is very variable. In some places they are almost wanting, in others they are so closely packed as to give the drift the character of a coarse gravel. The gravelly facies is a not uncommon one on the borders of the thicker spreads. Accompanying the angular flints, and sometimes largely replacing them, there are water-worn, subangular pieces, and completely-rounded pebbles of the same material ; and occasionally, a considerable proportion of the coarse material of the drift is sarsen and iron -sandstone. The clays and loams not infrequently exhibit the bright coloura- tion and mottling seen in the Reading Beds, and many of the por- tions thus distinguished have not only been mistaken for outliers of the latter by geologists, but have been put to the same uses as those beds by the brick and tile makers. There is no reason to doubt that these coloured clays and brick-earths are Lower Eocene deposits more or less rearranged. 9114. G .S2 CLAY-WITH-PLINTS. The junction of the Clay-with-Flints with the Chalk is generally very irregular, the drift descending into pipes or pockets (locally termed " bags "), due to the dissolution of the limestone by rain- water charged with carbonic and other acids acquired in its passage through the air and the soil ; and it is largely as a result of this un- evenness of its under sujface that the drift exhibits rapid variations in thickness. On sloping ground the junction with the Chalk is sometimes quite even, or no more than slightly undulate. In such places a sort of rough bedding is usually noticeable in the drift; and even where the ground is little, if at all, inclined and the drift seems, at first sight, to be structureless, a closer inspection will occasionally reveal some trace of banding. It is important to note that the assemblage of drifts covered by the term " Clay-with-Flints " is by no means so strictly confined to the Chalk as an examination of Sheet 267 of the Geological Survey Map might lead one to suppose. Flinty clays and loams, continuous with, and indistinguishable from, those on the Chalk very commonly overlap and obscure the boundaries of the Lower Eocene Beds, especially those of the smaller Reading outliers. The existence of such transgressive bodies of the Clay-with-Flints proves, what the obscure banding sometimes seen in that drift would lead one to suspect, viz. — that it possesses, or has possessed, some sort of lateral motion. This is not surprising, for the Clay- with-Flints, like other waste-sheets, must be journeying, in how- ever slow and halting a manner, towards the channels of the streams. Under the Arctic conditions which prevailed in this country during some portion or portions of the Pleistocene Period the streamward creep of all waste- sheets must have been much more rapid than at the present day, and it is probable that the over-riding of the flanged edges of the Eocene outliers by the clays and loams with angular flints took place at that time. There may be districts wherein the Chalk has been the only considerable (immediate) source of the material forming its mantle of Clay-with-Flints, but the Hungerford district is not among them. In this area the drift in question consists, to a large extent, of the waste and washings of Eocene and later deposits, more or less individuated by some complex blending-process ; and though the angular flints, the less common unbroken flint-nodules, and some of the fine clay must have been derived from the Chalk, the writer has yet to see a sample of this drift which does not contain a notable proportion of quartz-sand, or other material, ascribable to a diiferent source.* Mainly the outcome of the secular degradation and decomposi- tion of the solid rocks and early drifts which form or formed those broader inter-stream tracts where erosion and transporta- tion are at a minimum, the Clay-with-Flints must be of different * See also the recent paper by Mr. Jukes-BroH ne, "The Clay-with-Flints, its Origin and Distribution." Quart. Journ. Oeol. Soc, Vol. Ixii., 1906, pp. 132-161. CLAY-WITH-FLINTS. 83 ages in different parts — as Mr. Whitaker has pointed out. Much of it clearly post-dates all but the later or latest stages of the development of the existing valley-system, for broad sheets descend far down the sides of the ridges ; much of it, on the summits of those features, seems but recently to have taken the place of the Eeading Beds ; but the spreads in a Uke position, in the western and north-western parts of the district, where Eocene outliers are absent, may contain some of the oldest drift ia the area. The following brief notes on the character of the principal spreads of Clay-with-Flints are based mainly on observations made by Mr. F. J. Bennett :— North of the Eennet. Between Beedon and Bothampstead. — Generally sandy, like neighbouring Reading Beds. South and South-west of Beedon. — Sandy and loamy ; a gravelly patch on the border of this drift at the northern end of the village has been mapped as Plateau Gravel. Around Stanmore and Oatmore. — Mostly thin and clayey. About Brightwcdton, Chaddleworth, and Leckhampstead. — Generally thin — often no more than a stony soil — and chalky in many places. Sandy and gravelly about North Heath. In a shallow depression on the Common at Hill Green there is a group of partly -buried, coarse-grained sarsens(? remains of a. cromlech). North of Winterbourne. — Clayey and loamy. North of the Sheffords. — Same as the last. On the west side of Trindledown Copse the loam contains red clay (like Reading clay), and many fUnt-pebbles. North and North-west of Wickham. — Usually loamy and passes down the sides of the Lambourn and Kennet Valleys into the Valley Gravel. Around Shefford Woodlands. — Loamy. Often very thin near Roman Road, on the highest ground, but thickens on slopes to north and south. Lambourn Woodlands, King's Heath, and the Soleys. — More argillaceous, and brightly coloured ; merges into Reading outliers. " Pieces of ironstone and iron-sandstone .... are plentiful," and " sometimes contain frag- ments of fossil wood."* In an old brickyard south-west of Bayfields the drift contains pockets of red mottled clay. A " flinty wash " overspreads the outlier of Reading Beds at HiU's Farm. On the Roman Road, south of Parncombe Down, there is a patch of " brick-earth," which contains masses of coloured clay, and is mapped as Reading Beds on Sheet 13 of the old one-inch map. Baydon. — Clayey, passing into loamy soil north-west of the village. Sir J. Prestwich states that " the higher Chalk hills near Baydon .... are . . . capped by a gravel consisting of subangular flints and Tertiary flint-pebbles with some quartz-pebbles.""j" Mr. Bennett noted no gravel there, nor could the writer find any. Beticeen Aldbourne and the Kennet. — Loamy, with much coloured clay and sand. Angular flints very abundant west of Pentico Farm. *Whitaker, Memoir on Sheet 13, 1861, p. 55. f " On the Relation of the Westleton Beds, etc." (Part 2), Quart. Journ. Oeol. Soc, vol. xlvi.. 1890, p. 142. 9114. G 2 84 CLAY-WITH-FLINTS. SmulJi of the Rennet. Between Brick 'hUn Copse and Henswood. — Generally loamy, but becomes more argillaceous westward. Sowlh of Hungerford. — Chiefly loam. North of Chisbury Camp. — Loamy to clayey, with pebbles and subangular flints. Around Bedwyn Common. — Loamy, with many flint-pebbles, large and small ; subangular flints and bits of earsen common. Much of the Plateau Gravel shown on the map here might be dcFcribed as gravelly Clay-\»ith- Flints. 85 CHAPTER XII. DRIFT. Plateau Gravel. The deposits coloured as Plateau Gravel on Sheet 267 are high- level gravels and more or less gravelly drifts, generally occurring at the summits of flat-topped hills (or plateaux) formed, in the main, of Eocene strata. (See Fig. 9, p. 93.) The Plateau Gravel group, as defined on that Sheet, is, in a measure, an arbitrary one, for some of its members are not to be distinguished from deposits classed as River and Valley Gravel by their composition, structure, mode of occurrence, or altitude (absolute or relative) ; that is to say, by any of the tests which are usually regarded as of chief importance for the discrimination of unfossiliferous, or very sparingly-fossiliferous, drifts of this type. Nevertheless, the deposits so mapped are, on the whole, higher, older, and more widely spread than those coloured as Valley Gravel, and (by reason of the greater imperfection of the Drift- succession in this district) have, collectively, much more of the appearance of a natural group than have the gravels of the Read- ing area which bear the same name. The Plateau and the Valley Gravels are very often inseparable : their more level spreads frequently appear to be but the higher and lower members of a single graduated series — the steps and half-landings of a ruined stair-way that was never complete ; yet it seems to the writer that the intimacy of the relations sub- sisting between the two classes of drift has been rather over-em- phasised in one or two places on the Hungerford Sheet, and that a little re-distribution of the appropriate tints is desirable for the sake of consistency. Though subject to wide variation in their relative proportions, the constituents of the Plateau Gravel are the same throughout the area. They are : — 1. Subangular flints ; bleached white and grey, or stained brown. 2. Flint-pebbles, of similar aspects, and forming from 5 to 20 per cent. — ^but sometimes as much as 50 per cent. — of the coarse ingredients. 3. Angular or broken flints, and little-worn fliat-nodules. 4. Sarsens, usually subangular, commonly 1 to 12 inches in diameter ; occasionally much larger. 5. Iron-stone or iron-sandstone ; flaggy, brown. 6. Quartz ; in pebbles and subangular pieces conmionly between J and J of an inch, and rarely more than J inch in diameter. These occur in a matrix of sand,- loam, or clay. In the com moner, sandy facies of the gravel the order of abundance of the materials is usually that given above, but where, as in some places on the south and west, the matrix is argillaceous, the percentage of 86 PLATEAU GRAVEL. angular flints often greatly exceeds that of all the other coarse constituents together. Save for the quartz -pebbles, the gravel represents the waste of rocks similar to those still occurring in the district. The origin of the quartz -pebbles is uncertain. They may be derived, directly or otherwise, from some vanished beds of quartzose gravel belonging to the Eeading Series, which contains such deposits farther to the north-east. So far as the writer is aware, the only other foreign material discovered in this drift is a single piece of " Carboniferous Sandstone having on it the impression of a calamite," which was obtained by Mr. F. J. Bennett from the floor of a pit at Newtown Common. This, if not imported by human agency, may have come from the Chalk or Upper Greensand, which occasionally yield rock-fragments of distant origin. {See p. 8.) The structure of the Plateau Gravel is variable. Some deposits, particularly the thicker, are well stratified ; but an irregular, impersistent banding, attributable to ' creep ' or to other obscure movements occurring after deposition, is much more common. The origin of the drift and the relations of its several sheets wUl be briefly discussed after the character and disposition of the latter have been described. Cold Ash. — The prominent ridge which extends south and south-east- wards from Grimsbury Camp, by Cold Ash, to the eastern boundary of the district (and some distance beyond) is capped by a few feet of unstratified gravel with many flint-pebbles. The drift is well exposed in a group of pits about 5 furlongs south-south-west of the Camp, and in some smaller work- ings by the cross-roads three furlongs north-north-west of the church. In the pits first mentioned, small blocks of compact grey sarsen, presenting a clayey appearance on weathered surfaces, and containing, in some cases, Httle tubular cavities or " rootlet " oasts having a fascicular arrangement, are rather abundant. A thin slice of one of these blocks has been examined micro- scopically by Dr. J. S. Flett, who reports that the rock was once " a fine siliceous loam," and " is composed of very smaU and usually quite angular quartz grains irregularly mixed with a small quantity of fine argillaceous matter stained yellow by iron oxide. A few larger quartz grains lie in this matrix. The rock is finer grained than most sandstones are and more sUioeous than is usual in loams. It has also been to some extent silicified. No bedding or lamination is visible in the section." On Cold Ash Common the surface of the gravel is almost level at 517 feet O.D., but from near the inn south-eastward towards the church it has a gentle slope of about 20 feet per mile, with a shght increase thence towards the south-eastern end of the spread, which stands at 485 feet O.D. From this point there is a quicker fall, of about 30 or 40 feet in two or three hundred yards, to the edge of the adjacent spread of Bucklebury Common. The Bucklebury Common gravel, of which very little is indicated on Sheet 267, is often well stratified, and, in some places, as much as 12 feet thick. Its surface shows some broad and very faint upward convexities, but has a prevailing eastward slope at about the same gradient as the floor of the Kennet Valley, 230 feet below. Little Hemvick- Farm.— The small but well-marked spread to the north- west of this farm lies between 60 and 70 feet below the adjacent deposit of Cold Ash. The highest point recorded on the original six-inch map is 441 feet O.D. This is situated near the north-western side, whence the surface of the ground falls away very gently to the south. The gravel is of the same, rather-pebbly, character as that at Cold Ash Common. PLATEAU GRAVEL. 87 Sndsmore-Eaat Common. — Here again flint-pebbles are much in evidence. The plateau slopes southward, at about 20 feet per mile, from 462 feet at its broad northern end down to about 440 feet near the termination of its southern spurs. Sndsmore Common. — The proportion of subangular flints is decidedly greater in this spread. There are many pits on the Common and along its borders; most of them less than 10 feet deep. In one of these Mr. H. W. Monckton noted* the following section : — ft. in. "1. Stifl: reddish clay with stones 3 4 2. Gravel, subangular flints, and pebbles, small sarsens on end 3 4 3. Coarse sand, yellow, orange, greenish, and white 1 6 4. Gravel, hke bed 2 3 There are some small pebbles of quartz up to J^ oz. in weight, but they are rather rare. In some places the gravel is weU and evenly stratified, and in others it is unstratified." In the present writer's experience true stratification is somewhat rare in the Snelsmore gravel. An impersistent banding often noticeable seems to be due to movements in the body of the drift, and if this is actually the case the uptilting of the sarsens may be safely attributed to the same cause. The surface of the plateau is, on the whole, very even, and possesses a dis- tinct slope, from 463 feet O.D. at the northern end to about 430 feet at the southern, equal to 20 feet per mile. Just beyond the northern end of the spread there is a quicker rise in the ground, where the re-arranged Eocene pebble-bed, mapped as Lower Bagshot, comes on. {See Pig. 9, p. 93.) Basjord Hill and Winterbourne. — Despite its small dimensions the Basford Hill deposit is one of best-marked in the district. Its surface is strik- ingly even and, apparently, somewhat more gently inclined (towards the south-east) than that of the Snelsmore plateau. The northern end is 465 feet above O.D. Rising above the gravel-flat on its north-eastern side is the hump-backed mass of Borough HiE, evidently a remnant of one side of the valley in which the drift was laid down. On the south side of the road across the northern end of the plateau there is a large pit showing a clear section of the gravel to a depth of 8 to 10 feet. The deposit is well and horizontally - stratified, with fairly-persistent layers of red-brown sand and light coloured silt, and occasional seams of a greyish clay hke that often seen in the Reading and Lower Bagshot Beds. Flint-J)ebbles form fully 50 per cent, of the stones, and small, rolled blocks of compact grey sarsen, flaggy bits of ironstone, and small pebbles of white quartz all are common. ITrom the face of the pit, in undisturbed beds 4 feet below the surface of the ground, the writer obtained a worked flint of dark brown hue which, in Mr. A. S. Kennard's opinion, is an EoUth. The bluntness and patination of the worked edges suggest that the imple- ment is older than the drift in which it occurred, "f There are patches of similar gravel (between 460 and 440 feet O.D.) to the east of this, and another on the summit of Hour (or Hoar) Hill, (460 feet), to the west. Wickham, Stockcross, Speen. — This strip of gravel has a length of about 5 miles, and a range in altitude of 240 feet. Between its north-western end and Wickham Heath it is very thin — often no more than a gravelly soil. At the Heath, shallow workings on the north-eastern side of the Roman Road show 2 or 3 feet of sandy, subangular gravel with many small pieces of sarsen. A similar drift is exposed, to a depth of 7 feet, between the forks of the road at the southern edge of Furze HiU. More extensive workings * " On some Gravels of the Bagshot District," Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. , vol. Uv., 1898, p. 191. t See Report of Excursion to Boxford and Winter- bourne, by present writer, Proc. Geol. Assoc., vol. xix., 1906, p. 351, for notice of more recent discoveries. »B PLATEAU GRAVEL. south-east of Stockcross church sometimes show good sections, 10 feet or more in depth, of rather coarse, clayey gravel, with signs of stratification, resting with a sharp junction upon an undulate surface of Beading Sands and of the Basement-Bed of the London Clay. Large flint-pebbles from the latter bed abound in the lower part of the drift. There are good sections, also, near Speen, but, for reasons shortly to be given, the description of these is reserved for the next chapter. The prevailing slope of the Wickham-Stockcross spread is south-eastward (from 540 feet down to 300 feet O.D.), at gradients frequently above 50 feet per mile north-west of Stockcross. East of that place the plateau ridge north of Benham Park is nearly level, at 411 to 408 feet, but at Speen the eastward decline becomes more pronoxmced, and through the village there is a rapid descent, south-eastward, from 370 feet to 306 feet O.D. Such gravel a« occurs on this slope can be only surface-wash from the deposits on the flat above. From the foot of this deoUne (known as Speen HiU) a terrace, between 306 and 300 feet, extends south-eastward for nearly half a mile, when there is another and gentler descent into Newbury (255 feet in Broad- way). It is across this last slope that Mr. F. J. Bennett has drawn the boundary-line between the Plateau Gravel and VaUey Gravel, but in the writer's opinion it would have been far better to have placed this boundary at the foot of the higher slope of Speen Hill, to the west : for the gravel of the Speen terrace (at 306 feet) lies much below the level of any other spread in the neighbourhood which has been mapped with the Plateau group ; it is situated well within the trench of the combined valleys of the Lamboum and Kennet, and stands no higher above the latter stream than many another similar deposit of the Hungerford district the propriety of whose inclusion in the '' River and Valley" division of the Geological Survey is unquestion- able. The occurrence of mammalian remains in the Speen deposit (see below, p. 98) is an additional reason for classing it with the newer gravels. Wash, Greenhorn, and Crookham Commons. — This is the most extensive and probably the thickest of the sheets of Plateau Gravel in the Hiingerford area. Subangular flints are the chief constituent, but in some places the proportion of flint-pebbles is very large. The gravel attains its greatest thickness under Wash Common, near the western end of the plateau, where 20 feet of it has been found in a well at the "Parish" gravel pit.* Measure- ments of 10 and 12 feet have been obtained in other wells farther to the east, though the pits, of which there are a great number on Wash and Greenham Commons, are seldom worked to a greater depth than 5 or 6 feet. Mr. Bennett saw the following section at the " Corporation " pit on Wash Common, in 1886. " Rather coarse gravel with many pebbles [resting] irreaularly on much finer gravel interbedded with sand." Buff and grey sandy loam, cut into and underlaid by the finer gravel. Total thickness 15 feet." Farther south, another pit showed " about 12 feet of sand and gravel inter- bedded." On the south-western side of the road at Pile HiU, on the northern edge of the plateau, a frequently- worked pit exposes 7 or 8 feet of coarse and fine gravel, with about 10 per cent, of pebbles, in a rather clayey matrix. At the house called Noah's Ark, a quarter of a mile south-south-west of Bury's Bank, on Greenham Common, a well proved 10 feet of gravel, the upper beds of which are shown in a large working close by. Mr. Bennett notes that sarsens are rather common here. On this part of the plateau * " The Water Supply of Berkshire," Mem. Qeol. Survey, 1902, p. 60. PLATEAU GRAVEL. 89 Mr. E. 1'. Kichards* found 8 per cent, of flint pebbles in the gravel of a " typical '' section ; also some fragments of " compact sandstone or quartzite " (? sarsen) and of " chert "( ? oherty flint). A rather fine-grained gravel is exposed in a pit on the southern border of Crookham Common, one-third of a mile south-west of Crookham House. The surface of the gravel on the main body of the Greenham plateau is very even, and possesses, as a whole, a gentle slope to the east, though a transverse slope to the south and south-east is often observable. At Wash Common the ground is level at 411 feet O.D. Farther eastward there is a barely-perceptible fall to the 400-foot contour where it crosses the plateau near Bury's Bank, and from the 400-foot line to the eastern end of Crookham Common (370 feet) there is a fairly steady de- cline of 10 to 9 feet per mile. This eastward slope — which is continued, though with a decreasing gradient, in the still larger gravel-plateau of SUchester, Brimpton, and' Burghfield Commons, in the adjacent part of the Reading district — is almost the same as that of the floor of the Kennet Valley to the north ; the longitudinal profiles of the plateaux (P) and valley (K) forming nearly parallel curves of the upwardly-concave form suggested in the annexed diagram (Kg. 8). f The difference in altitude of the crests of the plateaux and the floor of the Kennet Valley, between the longitudes of Newbury and Theale, is approximately 160 feet. Enborne, Hampsiead Marshall, Irish Hill. — The more or less even summits of the hills between the Kennet and Enborne Valleys to the west of the Greenham plateau are covered by subangular and pebbly gravel — often of fine texture, lying mostly above the 400-foot contour, and reaching 415 feet near the south-western edge of the spread to the west of Hampstead Park. Much, if not all, of the gravel mapped on the slopes of these hOls, below 400 feet, is a wash from the thicker bodies which appear to be in situ above that level. There are some shallow pits in Hampstead Park, and in the grounds of Hampstead Lodge. The Plateau Gravels on the south side of the Enborne and about the head waters of that stream are generally argillaceous, and the ground they occupy, though even, has a pronounced inclina- tion to the north or north-east. Headley Heath (379-348 feet). — The gravel seen in the pits, 3 to 7 feet deep, which have been opened on the north side of the Basingstoke Boad, is rather fine, the stones being often embedded in brown mottled clay. The sur- face slopes northward at about 60 feet per mile. Sydmonton Common (376-333 feet). — A field-pit by the fork of the road, a quarter of a mile north of the Sun Iim, shows 4 or 5 feet of roughly banded ochreous gravel. Newtoum, Burghdere, and Earlstone Commons (440-370 feet).- a r£ cil 1 i- cji / ^■=^ — 1 -•] ^B r ^M ■§— ■ __ ^a ^ g 3 a ■ u =.-;=-j "S = ^ a s E ) Q .C 1 s ^^ " = — =1 o 2 4} ■ i t- — ^m o _Q .5 \ =^ ^H tj^ \ r^ A o /\ 1 \ ^= *nt ^== ^ ■ c ==4 o CD ■ E 3 Q) -D < 3 ^1 fS ^^ 0) (□ —^ a m _u H "3 =^ B o CO 1 > ■— ] •§ -a >*' o 'O 'c £> s S < fel T3 5. S 03 t> 1 6 '-" (11 ^ H -^^■ '^ CO •n ?^ /J fc^ ?i s^W t^ M I OS 6 94 PLATEAU GRAVEL. to consume the minor hills and ridges of soft Eocene rocks over a great part of the above-mentioned drainage -area, and the streams to spread out their alluvia on the gently -inclined plain of grada- tion forming the floor and lower side-slopes of the broad vale or depression thus produced. Remains of the gravel covering the bottom of that vale are seen on the fine plateaux of Silchester (in Sheet 268) and Greenham, on the flat-topped hiUs about Bnborne, and on the end of the spur north-west of Hungerford ; wMle the deposits on the sur- roimditig slopes are represented by the appreciably-inclined spreads of Henwick, the Snelsmores, Basford Hill, and Wickham Heath, on the north, and by some portions of the more strongly-inclined sheets of mixed and largely -argillaceous drift between Burgh- clere and Inkpen Commons, on the south {see Eig. 9). It is a difficult matter to fit the clayey gravels of the southern Commons into any chronological classification of the local drifts. Regarded by themselves, the detached spreads near Woodhay and Inkpen have the appearance of waste-sheets graded with reference to the " Silchester " base-level ; yet they seem to have been formed by thesame processes, and (to judge from their gradients and degree of dissection by valleys) at about the same time, as the more eastern spreads of Newtown, Sydmonton, and Headley Commons, which fall 20 or 30 feet below the level appropriate for the lowest deposits of the Silchester stage in that part of the dis- trict. It may be that these drifts are, in part, of post-Silchester age, and that the gradients of their often remarkably-even sur- faces were adjusted to a slightly lower gradation-limit, of which no clear record has been preserved in stream-terraces. The great development of the gravels of the third stage on the Eocene Beds in the southern and eastern part of the district possibly accounts for the very restricted areal range and marginal position of the older Plateau deposits in the same tract ; for the planing down of the rocks over a broad belt of country along the main line of drainage, which preceded or accompanied the spreading out of the later gravels, necessarily involved the wholesale destruc- tion of the earlier drifts within the same belt. It is, as yet, uncertain what place or places the Plateau Gravel of the Kennet Basin should be assigned in the drift-succession which has been made out in the Eastern Counties, where the Pliocene and Pleistocene records are more legible, if not more complete. One may, however, hazard the suggestion that the Cold Ash deposit is of late Pliocene age, and that the gravels of the succeeding stages belong to the earlier part of the Pleistocene period. The wide- spread sheets of coarse-textured drift which characterise the '' Sil- chester " stage, indicate a rate of rock-disintegration and, appar- ently, a rain- or snow-fall, so much greater than now obtain in this country, that their reference to some part of the Glacial period would not be unwarrantable. If not " glacial deposits," in the strict sense of that term, the tough flinty clays of Inkpen and PLATEAU GRAVEL. ^••'i Burghclere Commons may well have been mud-flows generated by rapid thawing of frozen soils at or about an age of maximum glaciation for the country farther north ; for the special conditions under which they were formed seem not to have recurred at any later stage iu the history of this district. At least, no similar accumulations have been observed among the newer drifts within the valleys. 96 CHAPTER XIII. DRIFT. Valley Gravel.* The superficial deposits to be considered in this chapter com- prise a series of coarse-textured drifts covering the bottoms and portions of the side-slopes of the priacipal valleys. In their composition these deposits often exactly resemble the gravels and looser gravelly clays of the Plateau Series, though they are locally distinguished therefrom by a more ochreous matrix, and by the presence of mammalian bones and teeth, of Palaeolithic implements, and of chalk-rubble — distinctions which imply a difference in the ages rather than in the general modes of forma- tion of the two drifts. In some parts of the district, particularly the more southern and south-eastern, a very considerable proportion of the constituents of the Valley Gravel must have been derived from the Plateau drifts ; in others it is equally certain that the amount of material from that source is trifling compared with that obtaiaed first-hand from the great volume of Chalk and Eocene Beds removed during the valley-excavation which .took place after the " SUchester " gravels of the Plateau Series were laid down. The deposits of Valley Gravel which lie on the sides of the valleys at heights of more than ten feet above the modern Alluvium, occur both in terraces and in strongly- inclined sheets. The terrace-gravels have only a local development, and as it seems impossible to identify the stages which they mark in the other deposits — either of the main valley or of its ramifications — no general chronological classification of this drift will be attempted. A description of the deposits in the Kennet valley will be followed by an account of those in the branch- valleys on the north and south. The Kennet Valley Gravel. Higher Slope and Terrace Gravds. — Along the northern slope of the trough, between Axford and Elcot Park (near Kintbury), there is a succession of gravel-patches, the gaps between which coincide with the lower ends of small lateral valleys. Though on the map their linear arrangement at first glance suggests that they are parts of a dissected terrace, these patches actually have little or nothing of the terrace character about them. As a comparison of their upper and lower boundaries with the contour lines will show, they are strongly -sloping sheets having a wide range in height above the valley-floor. West of Hungerford, where the lower slopes of the Kennet Valley are markedly steeper than * The " River and Valley Gravel " of the Index to Sheet 267. VALLEY GRAVEL. 97 the higher, the inferior limits of these patches lie some distance above the stream; but near Avington, to the east of that town, where the descent from the upland on the north is more imiform, the gravel covers the side of the valley from top to bottom. All these spreads are more or less closely connected with the Clay-with-Flints to the north, and— as Mr. Bennett, in effect, remarks — they seem, in some cases, to be little more than ex- ceptionally-stony facies of that drift. It is probable, however, that most of these slope-gravels are degraded river-gravels, of various ages, mingled with subagrial waste from the higher ground in their vicinity. In the westernmost of the three masses north of Ramsbury a pit on the road to ffiUdrop formerly showed 8 feet of rather coarse, angular flint- gravel, containing chalk-rubble near the bottom, and resting irregularly on stiff brown loam. Sections of clayey and loamy gravel, 5 to 7 feet deep, are exposed in the spreads to the north of Chilton FoHat and to the east of Leverton. Round Denford House and PoUy Farm pits and road-cuttings show from 4 to 6 feet of reddish-brown clayey gravel, with many angular flints ; much of it barely distinguishable from Clay-with-Flints. On the south side of the Kennet there are two sheets of slope - gravel to the south-east of Hungerford. In the larger of these, which covers Hungerford Down, Mr. Bennett observed about 10 feet of coarse and fine flint-gravel, with blocks of sarsen, resting irregularly on Clay-with-Plints and on the Chalk, in a pit a quarter of a mile south-east of the Workhouse. From this pit, which is now grassed over, Mr. J. W. Brooke, of Marlborough, obtained some Palaeoliths. Below Avington, the eastern element in the dip of the solid rocks brings the soft Eocene strata into the sides, and eventually into the bottom, of the valley. With the widening of the valley which accompanies this change the sloping spreads of argillaceous gravel give place to less inclined terraces of a more sandy drift. The highest of these terrace -deposits is that which caps the end of the spur between the Kennet and the Lambourn, to the east of the village of Speen. (Fig. 9, p. 93.) The drift there (coloured as Plateau Gravel on the map) forms a fairly well-defined flat — from 300 to 309 feet above sea-level, and about 60 feet above the Kennet to the south — which extends for nearly half a mile south- eastward from the foot of Speen Hill. On the south, there is a sharp descent from the edge of the terrace to the Kennet alluvium, but on the north there is a more moderate decline to the less marked bench of Donnington Square, between it and the Lambourn. In the Lambourn Valley Railway-cutting across the western end of the terrace Mr. E. P. Richards, * who has given much attention to the drifts near Newbury, noted the section which is given (in a condensed form) below : — Feet. Gravelly soil 2 Fine flit gravel 1 Fine reddish-yellow loam 2 Fine reddish, clayey fUnt-gravel, with some green-coated flints and "carbonaceous" layers - .-3 "London Clay" [Reading Beds] . - - . exposed 3 * " The Gravels and Associated Deposits at Newbury," Quart. Journ. Oed. Soo., vol. liii., 1897, p. 424. 9114. H 98 VALLEY GRAVEL. When the cutting was in course of excavation some remains of Elephas primigenius were found " very near this section, [and Mr. Richards believes] in either the gravel or the loam." Mr. LI. Treacher has searched the cutting for flint implements, but without success. Recently-made sewer-trenches in the Bath Road have proved that the gravel rests on a very uneven surface of Reading Beds, and that it frequently attains a thickness of 12 feet. In a pit on the north side of that road, near the eastern end of the terrace, Mr. Richards saw — Feet. Gravelly soil - - - 2 Red loam and clay, more or less laminated - - 2 Coarse flint gravel, slightly bedded, with occasional lenticles of stiff, dark, CIay-with-Plints,and a few green-coated flints exposed 7 Mr. Richards groups the drift of the Speen terrace with the lower gravel about Donnington Square, xmder the title of " Donnington Gravel," but the present writer can see no good reason either for this course, or for the separation of the Donnington Square deposits from those ooourring at the same elevation in the southern part of Newbury. The Lower Terrace-Gravels now to be described seem to belong to a single stage. Their inner borders are marked by a more or less distinct scarp or bluff, rising from 20 to 30 feet above the Alluvium ; and from the edge of this feature their surfaces usually rise outwards ia a gentle curve which merges into that of the valley-side. This inward slope probably is an original character, but its strength is variable, and in some cases there is good reason to believe that it has been much accentuated by the degradation of the lower edges of the terrace, and by the accumulation of slope-wash from the sides of the valley, on the higher. The rock platform (of Chalk or Eeading Beds) upon which these gravels rest is rarely visible. Well-sinkings, however, show that it is uneven, and that its lowest parts — ^probably in buried channels — ^fall below the present surface- level of the Kennet. One of these terraces, about half a mile wide, follows the left bank of the river between Avington and Marsh Benham. It is traversed lengthwise near its higher border by the Bath Road. A lane to the south of, and roughly parallel to, that road between Halfway and Marsh Benham, is situated on a shelf cut in its scarped edge. A pit one-third of a mile north-north-east of Barton Court shows 15 feet of gravel and loam ; another, east of Wawcott, shows 7 feet ; and two more by the Bath Road to the east and west of Halfway Inn show the same thick- ness ; the gravel in the last of these being decidedly argillaceous. A well at Halfway Inn proved the gravel there to be at least 20 feet thick. Below Marsh Benham the terrace has been cut off by the lateral erosion of the Kennet, but a little farther eastward a similar feature appears on the right-hand side of the valley, and extends through the southern part of Newbury, between the Great Western Railway and the high ground of Wash and Greenham Commons. (Fig. 9.) The surface of the latter terrace — for the most part between 280 and 260 feet above O.D.— has a gentle eastward inclination, and a stronger transverse slope towards its inner edge, which stands , VALLEY GRAVEL. 99 about 20 feet above the Kennet and is marked by a low, degraded bluff, well seen to the east of the Eailway Station. The under- lying drift, which Mr. E. P. Richards terms the " Upper River Gravel or Terrace Gravel,"f rests on a channelled surface of Reading Beds, and varies much in thickness from place to place. The first cutting on the Newhury and Winchester Railway, one and a half miles west-south-west of Newbuijy Station, showed about 8 feet of rather fine, sub-angular gravel with seams of loam and some sarsens and large, little- worn flints. The cutting on the Great West3m Ijn j between Enbome House and the junction with the Didcot branch is in well-stratified gravel, which is exposed to a depth of 18 feet at Newbury Station. At or near the last- named spot the drift has yielded a tibia of Bos primigenius, a horn of reindeer {Rangifer tarandus), and remains of Elephas 'primigenius. In the cutting to the east of the station, and about three-quarters of a mile distant therefrom, a tooth of boar was found. A large excavation for sand and ballast on the northern side of Enbome Road shows about 15 feet of rather coarse ochreous gravel, with black seams" and many blocks of sarsen-stone, lying upon grey and greenish sands of the Reading Series. The prevailing inclination of the surface upon which the gravel lies appears to be towards the south or south-east, i.e., away from the Kennet. The base of the gravel seen in the section is probably less than 10 feet above the level of that river. Where cleared of gravel the Reading Sands show the characteristic grooves and scour-hoUows of a river- bed. In Bull's Lane, at a point half a mile east of the Railway Station, Mr. Richards observed the following sectionf (apparently in a drainage trench) : — Feet. Flint gravel, coarse ; surface unseen 2 Pine soft sand with black grains - 5 Coarse flint and sarsen gravel in a matrix of brown clay exposed 3 Twenty yards distant (direction not stated) the sand bed had thinned out. All the above sections are situated near the inner or northern edge of the terrace where, according to Mr. Richards, the gravel is usually about 12 feet thick. A well near the lodge of Newbury Cemetery, close to the outer edge of the spread, passed through 24 feet of gravel, consistiag of ferruginous, brown, subangular flints with a few flint-pebbles in a clayey matrix, without reach- ing the base of the drift. Another well, at the south-western corner of the same enclosure, is in a more loamy deposit with fewer flints. At the fork of the roads a little to the north the green and white sands of the Reading Beds were encountered at a depth of 10 feet in a well, and of 4 feet in a sewer close by.f The gravel at the Cemetery is, no doubt, chiefly a wash from the higher ground to the south. Mr. E. T. Newton has identified remains of the following mammals from the South Newbury terrace -gravel § :— Bos primigenius Bos taurus Bquus caballus Ovis Rangifer tarandus Sus sorofa * Op. cit., p. 425. t Loc. cit. Unimportant details here omitted. t Geological Survey Memoir on Sheet 12, 1862, p. 46. § Richards, Op. cit., p. 427. There seems to be some question as to whether the remains of Ovis found in the terrace-gravel at East Fields were not of recent introduction. Trans. Newbury Dist. Field Club, vol. iv., 1895, p. 210. 9114. H 2 100 VALLEY GRAVEL. All these were found by Mr. Richards, who states that the remains occurred " in groups," and were " quite unrolled." According to the same author the " Upper River Gravel " contains " roughly- made rude Palaeolithic flint implements," which may be found " on the surface of the fields " above it.* A smaller and less definite terrace, evidently belonging to the same stage as the last, underlies the extreme northern part of Newbury and extends along the right bank of the Lambourn nearly to Bagnor. There is little doubt that this spread was once continuous with the Halfway and Avington deposits in the main valley, farther to the west. In a diainage-excavation in the Oxford Boad at the south-eastern comer of Donnington Square (277 feet above O.D.) Mr. Richards noted :— Feet. Made ground and macadam 3 Fine brown laminated loam with occasional traces of car- bonaceous matter - - 4 Coarse, roughly-bedded flint and sarsen gravel, sometimes with dark clayey matrix • 13 Chalk with flints - exposed 2 The sarsens in the gravel were greyish-brown and subangular, and varied in dimensions "from small fragments up to 3 feet in longest diameter," the largest occurring near the base of the drift. Mr. Richards " obtained one fragment of bone in this gravel, which Mr. E. T. Newton, P.R.S., has referred to Bison, or Bos primigenius." Mr. Bennett states that a well in Speenhamland, and near the eastern end of this terrace, passed through 20 feet of drift above the Chalk. To the east of the Lambourn below Shaw an exceptionally well-marked terrace, with a steep scarp at its inner edge, follows the northern side of the Kennet Valley to Thatcham. The gravel here appears to thicken towards the river, and its surface, when not sensibly horizontal, has a gentle slope in the same direction, and towards the east. In view of the remarkably good preservation of this terrace it is noteworthy that the eastward decline in its even surface is perceptibly less than that of the Kennet in the same section of the valley. The disappearance of the feature immediately below Thatcham leaves one in doubt as to the original extent and the cause of this divergence, but the writer suspects that the gradient of the Kennet below Newbury was rather gentler when this gravel was laid down than at the present day. The position of the blufi at the inner edge of the terrace is roughly marked on the map by a lane running westward from Thatcham church. To the east of the break in the gravel near New Town the lane runs above the bluff ; to the west, immediately below it. * " The Geology of Newbury and District " (in Mr. Walter Money's " Popular History of Newbury." London and Newbury, 1905, p. 216.) t Quart. Journ. Oeol. Soc, vol. liii., p. 423. VALLEY GRAVEL. 101 The Shaw-Thatcham gravel is dug in many places, but the pits are seldom carried down to the Reading Beds below. A well at RedJEield House is stated * to have passed through : — " Gravel - 10 ") Clay and gravel 20 ^40 feet." Fine gravel 10 J As the surface of the terrace at this spot is about 30 feet (possibly a little less) above the Kennet, to the south, the base of the gravel must lie below the level of that stream. There would seem to be a buried channel here. Two excavations in stratified gravel occiir in the fork of the roads one-third of a mile south-east of Redfield House ; the lower showing 6 or 7 feet of the drift, which contains current-bedded lenticles of coarse, greyish sUt. Red- brown, sandy and loamy gravel, with traces of bedding, was exposed in the foimdation-trenches for houses on the north side of the high road, west of Thatcham, and in some old workings on the Common to the east of the village. Well-stratified, reddish gravel, of rather fine texture, but contain- ing a few big flints, is seen in the large pit to the west of Thatcham church. In a well at the vicarage the gravel is S^feet thick. Low-Level or Bottom Gravels. — ^Between Axford and Thatcham the Kennet Alluvium is bordered by discontinuous bands of, gravel, rarely exceeding a quarter of a mile in width. These scroU-like strips are, for the most part, emergent portions of a deposit which covers the rock-floor of the valley, and forms the founda- tion of the peat, marl, and flood-loam of the water-meadows. From Axford down to Avington the Valley Gravel of characteris- tically fluviatile aspect seems to be confined to such low-lying strips. The gravel which extends a little way up the north side of the valley at Ramsbury may include deposits of the same age as those forming the terraces of Halfway, South Newbury, and Thatcham farther east. Sections of the bottom -gravel are to be seen in a pit on the left bank of the Kennet a quarter of a mile west of Axford Farm, and in the roadbanks near Ramsbury. To the south of Halfway there is a little " island " of gravel, in the Alluvium. From the base of the low blufi at the inner edge of the South Newbury terrace a sheet of gravel slopes gently down to, and passes beneath, the river. Much of the older part of Newbury between the parish church and the railway stands on this gravel (or its covering of peat and marl, which extends much farther south than is shown on the map), less than 10 feet above the Kennet. Another similar spread extends through the northern end of the town, from Benham Park on the west nearly to the confluence of the Kennet and Lambourn on the east ; and a third occurs below the Thatcham terrace, where the small patch of Brickearth is mapped. Two low mounds of the same drift — one of them an " island " — are separated by the Kennet and Avon Canal, north of Chamberhouse Farm. At Newbury the low -level Valley Gravel rests upon the Chalk, and contains a large percentage of flints derived directly from that ♦ " Water Supply of Berkshire," p. 58. 102 VALLEY GRAVEL. formation. Mr. Richards states * that a fine section " was ex- posed at the pumping-station of the drainage-works, in the flat water-meadows near the Kennet (on Cook's Farm)" to the east of the town. It showed : — Feet. " Peaty soil and peat with Neolithic fliat implements - - 1 Stiff, pale yellow, sandy, homogeneous clay - 2 Clean flint-shingle, grey in colour ; aarsens up to 12 inches in diameter near the base, and small chalk fragments inter- mingled throughout - - lOJ White sandy clay, with black flint nodules and chalk fragments 4 C!halk with flints - - - exposed - 5 " The base of the gravel is [there] about 240 feet above O.D." In another section, 30 yards to the north of the above, the gravel contained a 5-inch band of " tenacious, white, sandy, micaceous clay." Mr. Richards remarks that *he gravel " usually has a grey appearance ; the flints, unless rounded, being much battered and abraded. The matrix is frequently absent ; when present it is of the cleanest quartzose sand, and rarely the upper portion has a matrix of white shell-marl, loosely filling the interstices. The currents which had dealt with this lowest gravel appear to have been extremely violent, judging from the battered condition of the flints, and the absence [in the body of the drift] of any matrix but the coarsest clean quartzose sand." Mr. Richards further observes that " the gravel rises into curious ridges, which traverse the valley from side to side more or less at right angles to the present course of the Kennet. These mounds show very little, or not at all, upon the surface ; but the peat, clay, and marl thin out over [them]." He refers to these " ridges " and " mounds " as " old lines of lake-barriers," and compares them to the bay-bars of the coast. The scaled diagrams which illustrate his paper, however, show them to be gently -sloping accumulations of depressed, up- wardly-convex form ; and there seems no reason to doubt that they belong to the very common type of current-buUt shoal ex- amples of which have determined the position of most of the river - fords in the south-east of England. The banks of gravel which rise through the Alluvium at Halfway and near Chamberhouse Farm doubtless have a similar origin. That such shoals, by im- peding the flow of the shrunken Kennet of post-Pleistocene times, encouraged the accumulation of the swamp and lacustrine deposit of the Alluvium in the interverdng depressions, cannot be doubted ; but that any of them formed " water-tight " valley-dams, subject to elevations and depressions, or to breachings and mendings — as Mr. Richards suggests — seems very improbable. Mn. Bennett notes that an antler of red deer (Cervus da/phus) was found in clean- washed gravel beneath loam near the drainage works. Mr. Richards possesses " two large rude but undoubted flint * Quart. Journ. Oeol. 8oc., voL liu., pp. 428-9. VALLEY GEAVEL. 103 Palaeolitlis from the Lower Eiver Gravel, both rather water -worn but much less abraded than the flinte which surrounded them."* A well near Newbury Police Station proved 20 feet of this gravel above the Chalk. Gravd in the Valleys North of the Eennet. At Compton, in the Pang Valley, a coarse gravel of angular and subangular flints with blocks of sarsen and much chalk d^ris, is dug to a depth of 6 feet. A similar gravel covers the bottom of the Winterbourne Valley, and may be seen in shallow workings to the south of Lilly. Below the village of Winterbourne the drift contains many big flint- nodules, derived from the cor-angumum-chalk outcropping on the sides of the valley. In the valley followed by the Wantage road north of West ShefEord the gravel, in places, contains many sarsens — as may be seen in a pit half a mile south-east of Henley Farm. Gravelly drifts are well developed on the floor and sides of the Lambourn Valley. The patches lying between the 500 and 300-foot contours on the south-western side below West Shefiord are mostly mixtures of subangular gravel and stony Clay-with-Flints. Pits in them show from 3 to 8 feet of flinty loam or clay, with some small sarsen blocks and bits of flaggy iron-sandstone. At Showells, south-south-east of Welford, there are signs of a terrace near the 400-foot contour, about 90 feet above the Lambourn. The higher part of the mass south of Bagnor appears to be, or to have been, a continuation of the Speen terrace, but the greater part of the spread extending thence across the site of the second Battle of Newbury to Shaw Bridge lies on a pronounced slope, in which the lower terrace of Donnington Square is barely traceable. The Lambourn Railway intersects several of the blunt spurs between the minor combes opened on the sides of the valley, and sections of the gravels lying on the lower slopes, but well above the stream, are seen in the cuttings. The matrix of these deposits is often clayey and chalky, and large unworn flints and small blocks of sarsen are very common. On the floor of the valley and in its higher branches above Lambourn the gravel is comparatively little worn, and contains an abundance of sarsens. At Ashdown Park, just beyond the northern limit of the Hungerford district, hundreds of these blocks, many of great size, project through the turf. Near the surface, the ground-mass of the bottom-gravel is usually thin and loamy ; lower down it often consists, very largely, of compact chalk-rubble. In the southern part of Lambourn (Elm Avenue), and a little beyond the boundary of the gravel as drawn on the map, a pit, 8 feet deep, showed a mass of angular and subangular flints, and rounded blocks of sarsen up to 2 feet in diameter, firmly embedded in a chalky paste. * " The Geology of Newbury and District," p. 218, 104 VALLEY GRAVEL. Farther down the valley sections at low levels are scarce. The only one worthy of notice is that at Manor Farm, west of Bagnor, which shows 6 feet of very coarse flint gravel. A strip of brown, loamy gravel foUows the rather narrow and winding combe of Kadley and Old Hayward Bottoms. In the upper branches of this valley the drift is intimately connected with the Clay-with-Flints, which has formed the principal source of its constituents. The gravel dug near the cross-roads east of Lye Farm contains many small fragments of ironstone. The bottom-gravel in the Aldbourne Valley and its branches resembles that seen in the valleys to the east. Blocks of sarsen are common. Gravd in the Valleys South of the Kennet. The Enborne is bordered in many places by small spreads of rather pebbly gravel with flaggy pieces of grey sarsen. Occasionally the lateral cutting of the stream has trimmed these patches iato low terraces. Shallow sections are to be seen to the west of Wood- hay Station, to the south of Hyde End, and to the north-east of Headley Common. Near the southern end of the narrow strip of gravel on the west bank of the brook running northward from Inkpen, small pits ill a field show a few feet of very pebbly drift in red-brown loam. The patch between Bedwyn Brail and Newtown is composed mainly of angular and httle-worn flints in loam. In a pit near the northern end the gravel is chalky. On the bottom of the straight valley followed by the Bath Road to the west of Froxfield, and in the larger branches of that valley which run up to the south by Bedwyn Common and Savernake Forest, there are narrow strips of rather coarse gravel containing many slightly-worn flints. Numerous small workings, from 2 to 4 feet deep, in the valleys east and west of Bedwyn Common, expose red-brown gravel containing subangular flints, slightly- worn angular and nodular flints, and many flint- pebbles — some of them of the massive type seen in the lowest part of the London Clay. Small, worn blocks and rounded pieces of sarsen also are common. The spurs between the southern branches of the Froxfield valley are capped, near their northern ends, by a mixed drift mapped both as Plateau and as VaUey Gravel, and where these spurs run into the side of the main valley the drift in question spreads for some distance down their terminal slopes. It is in one of these sloping deposits, well within the main vaUey and only 40 feet above its floor, that the Knowle Farm pit, which has yielded so many Paleeolithic implements, is situated. The section there is thus described by Mr. Clement Reid * : — " The deposit seen in Knowle pit consists of 12 or 15 feet of unstratified * " Note on the Palaeolithic Gravel of Savernake Forest, Wiltshire." Summary of Progress for 190S, p. 208. Mem, Geol, Survey. VALLEY GRAVEL. 105 gravel of unworn or shattered flints, with 10 or 15 per cent, of Tertiary pebbles, rare greywethers, and numerous Palaeolithic implements, which occur at all levels, though most abundantly towards the base. There are no seams of clean-washed sand or gravel. The stones are embedded in a loamy ferruginous matrix, which has been so thoroijghly decalcified by per- colating water that it seems hopeless to expect fossils, unless some massive specimen, such as the tooth of an elephant, may have resisted decay. The removal of the Chalk-rubble which once evidently formed a considerable proportion of the gravel, helps to account for the entire obliteration of any bedding that may have existed. Even now the irregular solution of the solid chalk below is tending still more to mix the material, for the workmen recently broke into a small cave, caused by the subsidence of the lower part of the gravel into a pipe in the chalk, while the surface remained un- disturbed." In 1902 the present writer observed an irregular lens of rubbly chalk in the midst of the gravel on the eastern side of the pit, and a blunt pinnacle of solid chalk, blackened at its contact with the drift, near the middle of the section. As Mr. Reid remarks, the character of the gravel " does not suggest ordinary river action ; it suggests rather intermittent floods* washing angular material from the slopes above." The t5hief respects in which the deposit differs from most of the other spreads of slope-gravel and gravelly Clay-with-Flints of the Hungerford district are the abundance in it of small, elongate or fusiform flint-nodules (probably from the Marsuj)ites -chalk which occurs to the south), and of flint tools. The gravel is used for road-metal over a rather wide area, and the credit of the discovery of its implementiferous character belongs to Mr. S. B. Dixon, of Pewsey, who noticed worked flints on the roadside heaps at, or near, that village, and traced them to their source. The tools are of many types, which have been described and figured by Dr. E. WiUett in the Journal of the Anthropological Institution, vol. xxi. (1901), pp. 310-15. Two points of interest in connection with them may be noticed here. One is the peculiar varnish-like glaze which many of the specimens exhibit on some portion of their surfaceSj and is generally attributed to tRe deposition of a film of silica. The glaze is not, however, confined to the tools, but occurs also on the associated unworked flints. The other point is the rather large proportion of implements of inferior workmanship. Mr. Treacher informs the writer that the general facies of the Knowle tools he has seen most nearly resembles that of the Palae- oliths obtained by him and by the late Mr. J. Allen Brown in the river-drifts of Dawley and Iver, in Middlesex, 80 to 100 feet or more above the Thames to the south of those places. This resem- blance may imply the contemporaneity of the two sets of palseoUths, and a rough approximation of the ages of their associated drifts. In the higher part of the Kennet-Thames basin Palaeolithic im- plements commonly occur in groups, each of which has a special * By the word " floods," in this instance, the present writer understands surface waters as yet unconoentrated (c/., "sheet -floods"), rather than those which overflow from more, to less, definite channels. 106 VALLEY GRAVEL. tacies. Unfortunately, the group-features so dominate all the rest that it has hitherto been found impossible to use the tools as a basis for the chronological classification of the several deposits of • VaUey Gravel in that area.* Mr. Reid thinks that the Palaeolithic gravel of Knowle Farm may be " contemporaneous with the well-known [Pleistocene] deposits of Southampton Water, Bournemouth, and the Avon Valley." His impression that it is " more ancient than such deposits as the Coombe Rock of Brighton, or the lowest terrace gravels b the valleys of the south of England" is shared by the present author. The Sussex Coombe Rock is most probably represented by the (occasionally) chalky gravels which pass beneath the Allu- vium in the Kennet valley, and by the similar drifts and the chalk-rubble fans in the Thames Valley, farther east.f Regarded as a whole, the Valley Gravel points to a wasting of the solid rocks scarcely less rapid than that indicated by the Plateau Gravel. The Pleistocene period — ^to the middle and later ages of which the deposits of the former class are referred — was one of intermittent land -elevation (relative or positive), and ere it closed the Kennet and its tributaries had sunk their channels from 160 to 180 feet below the Plateau Gravel of the Silchester stage near the main Hne of drainage, and nearly all the existing features of the district had been developed. It is probable that the only important topographic change that has taken place since the newest deposits of Valley Gravel were formed has been the shallowing and flattening of the floors of the Kennet VaUey and its branches by the accumulation of alluvium, and of rain-wash and creeping soil from the adjoining slopes. This infilling process, which had, indeed, commenced when the sub-AUuvium bottom- gravels were laid down, doubtless dates from the cessation of the upward movement above mentioned. The aggrading effects of the later subsidence which has drowned the coastal portions of the river valleys of th» South of England can have been felt but little so far inland. That an important change in the climatic conditions has occurred since elevation gave place to subsidence is shown by the substitution of the fine-grained, largely-organic sediments of the AUuvium for the coarse, current-bedded gravels of the older drift, in the principal drainage channels. * See LI. Treacher, " On the Occurrence of Stone Implements in the Thames VaUey, etc." RepoH Brit. Assoc. (Section 0.) for 1903, p. 670, and Man, February, 1904, No. 10, p. 17. t See Proc. Oeol. Assoc, vol. xviii., 1904, pp. 415, 417. 107 CHAPTER XIV. DRIFT. Alluvium. The only considerable spread of AUuvium in this area occurs in the Kennet Valley, where it occupies the belt to which the minor meanders of the river are confined. Between Axford and Avington this belt is rarely more than a quarter of a mile wide. Below the latter place it widens, to half a mile at Kintbury, and three-quarters of a mile at Speen Moor, to the west of Newbury. Near that town the Alluvium thins and narrows over and between the shoals of River Gravel, but again expands at Ham Marsh, below the embouchure of the Lambourn. The long strips of water-meadow formed by this deposit are en- livened by a vast number of branching feeders and artificial dis- tributaries of the main stream, many of which are filled to the brim and swiftly- flowing in the driest seasons. The Kennet Alluvium is of an exceptionally interesting kind, consisting, as it does, of fossiUferous fresh-water marls, peat, clay, and loam, which rest upon, and fill shallow depressions in, the low-level Valley Gravel. As the sections opened from time to time during the period of 170 years (ending about 1870) in which the peat was regularly dug and burnt for manure, and those exposed in the excavations for the Newbury sewers in 1894, attracted the attention of numerous observers, the literature of the subject is rather extensive. General descriptions of the peat and marl from the earlier writers will be found in the appendix to the late Dr. Silas Palmer's essay " On the Antiquities found in the Peat of Newbury " (Trans- actions of the Newbury District Field Club, Vol. ii., 1878, pp. 123- 149) ; and notes of more recent publications are attached to Mr. E. P. Richards' paper on " The Gravels and Associated Deposits at Newbury " (Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, Vol. liii., 1897, pp. 420-434). Though varying greatly in their thickness and in their secondary lithological characters, the several sorts of sediment which go to the making of the Alluvium near Newbury yet observe a certain order or sequence. Mr. E. P. Richards, who was professionally engaged in the main drainage -works at that place, and thus had exceptional facilities for studying the drift-deposits exposed in the deep sewer- trenches, which traversed the floor of the valley in directions trans- verse and parallel to the river, gives the section reproduced below as typical of the town area.* With the beds there shown may be provisionally correlated those formerly visible in the neigh- bouring peat-fields. * Quart. Journ. Oeol. Soc, vol. liii., 1897, p. 431. Kg. 7. 108 ALLUVIUM. Fig. 10. — Section in Northbrook Street, Newhwry (E. P. Eiohaeds). G. Valley gra-i'el. 1. Greenish-yellow clay. 2. Green loam. 3. Peat. 4. Freshwater shell-marl. 5. Mediaeval road-metal. M. Modern road-metal. 1. The stiff greenish-ydlow day^ at the base of the series, yielded " several roughly-worked black slightly-weathered flints of Palaeolithic types, and some pieces of water-worn wood . . . but no bones."* Though generally present in the area personally examined by Mr. Eichards, this clay is not mentioned in Professor T. Rupert Jones' statementf of the succession in the peat-workings above and below the town. Mr. F. J. Bennett remarks} that "Dr. Palmer of Newbury obtained by dredging from the bed of the Kennet near Newbury the greater portion of the tusk of the mam- moth.§ It was found 9 feet below the peat in a greenish clay," which may be the same as that containing the Palseoliths just noted. In any case, the lowest member of Mr. Richards' type-section appears to be distinct from, and older than, the argillaceous marl in which, according to Professor Rupert Jones, the abundant [Recent] mammalian remains of the Peat series " are usually met with." ,, ^. , , 2. The succeeding qreen loam " consists Vertical scale : r i , i x j^ /. i j-iuoh = 1 foot. of about equal parts of nne sand and dark greenish clay. Fresh-water shells and logs of birch and oak, with leaves, twigs, and nuts of the hazel, occur frequently, and are identical with those in the peat above." Mr. * Richards, " The Geology of Newbury and District,'' in W. Money's " Popular History of Newbury," 1905, p. 220. f " Lecture on the Geological History of the vicinity of Newbury Berks," 1854, p. 40. % MS. notes. § Two other records of the discovery of a tusk of this elephant, in or near the Kennet at Newbury, exist. See Trans. Newbury Dist. Field Olvb, vol.iii., 1895, p. 193 ; and footnote (by " T.R.J.") to Mr. Richards' paper in Quart. Journ Geol. Soc, liii., p. 427. In both, the locality given is "Northcroft Lane " ; but while in the former a tusk is stated to have been dredged from the bed of the Kennet, and to have been preserved in the collection of Mr. Montague Palmer, in the latter Dr. Silas Palmer is credited with having discovered "a large tusk," m the "Upper River Gravel" of Mr. Richards' classification, " by the riverside." There is so much that is vague in the accounts of the Kennet Alluvium that one may well believe both the above records to refer to the specimen mentioned by Mr. Beimett. No " Upper River-gravel " occurs " by the river-side at Northcroft Lane.'" ALLUVIUM. 109 Richards obtained the pelvis of a roe-deer from this bed near the pumping station. This green loam with shells (described as " malm " by other writers*) has only a local development beneath the town, but it seems to represent the more persistent band of tough, argillaceous shell-marl, 1 to 2 feet thick, that underlies the main body of the peat in the marshes to the east and west. The latter bed — the " lower marl " of Professor Jones — is stated to have yielded many remains of animals, which appeared to be " more plentiful towards the edge of the valley."]' The names of the species represented are (so far as the present writer can ascertain) usually included in the lists from the overlying peat, though Dr. John Collet, so long ago as 1758, pointed out the desirability of keeping an accurate record of the position in which the fossils of the Peat series occur, J In Professor (Sir Richard) Owen's " History of British Fossil Mammals and Birds " (1846, p. 193), however, it is definitely stated, on the authority of " Mr. Purdoe of Islington " that remains of the beaver, wild boar, roe-buck, goat, deer, and wolf were found at this horizon. Elsewhere in the same work (p. 397) the occurrence of " several bones of a large ass " (? a small horse), with the beaver, in the marl beneath the peat, is mentioned. 3. The 'peat is a black or dark-brown deposit consisting of moss, sedge, bracken, with the leaves, branches, and trunks of fir, alder, oak, willow, hazel, and birch, and nuts, tree fungi and other debris of forest and swamp vegetation. In thickness it ranges from a mere film to more than 15 feet. Seams of shell-marl are common, and in places the organic matter is largely replaced by fine silt and mud. Calcium sulphate is present — often in the form of minute crystals of selenite — and was found to form 32 per cent, of a sample of peat-ashes examined by Sir Humphrey Davy.§ From this bed, under Newbury, Mr. Richards obtained " numerous flint implements . . ., including one axe-like instrument, many scrapers, Imives, and needle-like flints, together with wasters in abundance. Traces of fire were frequent in calcined flints and quantities of charcoal fragments. Nearly all the marrow-bones of the animals were split longitudinally. Many of the flints were quite unused, and their fine keen edges distinctly indicated that they had been made where found." The implements, which were " all of neolithic types," occurred mostly " near the top of the peat," and " no bronze or iron weapons were found." || The bones and teeth * Geol. Survey Memoir on Sheet 12, 1862, p. 50 ; and " Water Supply of Berkshire," 1902, p. 58 — both accounts of well-sections in Northbrook Street. t Jones, o-p. cit., p. 40. j Letter to the Bishop of Ossory, Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc, vol. 1., part 1, 1758, pp. 109-115. § Mem. Geol. Surv., Sheet 12, p. 50. Quoted from The Penny Cyclopedia ; Art. Berkshire. II A gold pin, and a silver penny of Edward I. were found in the peat under the northern part of the town. See Trans. Neutbury Dist. Field Clvh, vol. ii., p. 129, and vol. iv., rp. 211-213. 1 10 ALLUVIUM. which were collected by the same author were referred, by Mr. E. T. Newton, to : — Bos longifrons, Owen Sus scrofa, Linn. Cervus elaphus, Linn. Ovis Capreolus caprea, Gray Cania familiaris, Linn. Equus oaballus, Linn. Canis lupus, Linn. Capra hircns, Linn. Mustela martes, Linn. The list given by Mr. Eichards ia his paper on " The Gravels, etc., at Newbury" (1897) includes Bangifer tarandus,yn.ih. a note of interrogation, which is explained by the remark that the species " was represented only by a drilled and ornamented piece of antler, and it is doubtful whether this animal. was contemporary with the peat."* There would seem, however to be a further (and more serious) doubt, viz., whether the horn in question was derived from the peat at all.f Remains of a pile-dwelling, having its platform level with the top of the peat and covered by the succeeding marl, were en- countered in Bartholomew Street, and similar structures have been observed in other excavations, in the Market Place and Cheap Street, in the same quarter of the town. The peat which underlies the marshes outside Newbury, and occurs at intervals along the whole course of the Kennet from Hungerford to Reading, must be, in great part, of the same age as the town peat, with Neoliths " near the top ; " but the fact that it has yielded polished flint tools (as well as the flaked), and an abundance of weapons and other objects of the Bronze, Iron, and Historic Ages,:j: shows that portions of it are of more recent origin. " Live " peat-bogs no doubt existed in the marshes long after Newbury had come into existence about the approaches to a ford of the Kennet. The list of mammalia from the marshes includes § : — Homo Equus asinus, Linn. Canis lupus, Linn. Cervus dama ? Linn. Meles taxus, Bodd. Cervus elaphus, Linn. Lutra vulgaris, Erxl. Capreolus caprea, Oray Ursus arctoa ? Linn. Capra hircus, Linn. Castor europseus, Owen Bos primigenius, Boj. Arvicola amphibius, Linn. Boa longifrons, Owen Equus cabaUus, Linn. Sus scrofa, Linn. Of the above names, Equus asinus possibly stands for the very questionable " large ass " mentioned by Sir Richard Owen (op. cit.) as occurring with the beaver in the underlying marl. The human remains comprise four fragmentary skulls. One of these was dug up under 15 feet of peat opposite Benham House, and a second — associated with antlers of the red deer (0. daphits) — at Halfway, * Page 431. t See remarks in Mr. Walter Money's essay " On the Prehistoric and Mediaeval Antiquities found at Newbury during the Drainage Operations in 1894." Trans. Newbury List. Field Club, vol. iv., p. 209. :|: Numerous notes on the archaeology of the peat will be found in the Transactions of the Newbury District Field Cluh, vols. i-iv. § Antlers of Gervus megaceros were found in peat at Aldermaston, a few miles below Newbury, Oeol Mag., 1881, pp. 95, 480. ALLUVIUM. Ill two and a half milea to the west. The localities of the other two are uncertain. A calvarium thought to be one of the latter, and the Benham specimen, which are in the Oxford University Museum, have been described by the late Professor J. Rolleston,* who remarks that they " are of a type often found in prehistoricinter- ments anterior to as well as during the Bronze Age, and the tout ensemble of their characters appears to me to make it likely that they do not belong to any much later period." Two fine specimens of crania and horns of Bos frimigenius, from Ham Marsh and Speen Moor, are preserved in the Cloth Hall Museum at Newbury. The Ham Marsh specimen measures about three feet between the tips of the horns. It was found in peat, six feet below the surface of the ground. 4. Both in the town and outside it the peat is fcommonly over- lain by a bed of shell -marl, marly -clay, or shelly-loam, from 1 inch to 10 feet thick, which sometimes contains seams of peat or peaty-clay. As a rule, this deposit is best developed where the peat is thinnest, and vice versa. This " upper marl," or " malm," is typically white or light-grey, friable, granular, and tufaceous, and consists very largely of the calcareous secretions of Ghara (pond weed),-|- and the shells of living spscies of fresh-water and land moUusca. " Hard, ovoidal, concentric masses of concreted marl, of various dimensions, up to the size of a man's head, occur here and there in this deposit ; generally near the present course of the river. "J In the marshland west of Newbury a some- what looser and more loamy, tufaceous malm, very rich in well- preserved shells, and locally termed " strand," occurs in low banks and moxmds thinly covered by turf. The largest of these banks (whence the " strand " itself probably derives its name) extends along the northern side of the Alluvium between Wawcott and Benham, and is mapped as Tufa on Sheet 267. It stands a little above the general level of the water-meadows, and is likened to a causeway by Dr. Buckland, who ascribes its formation to the accumu- lation of floating shells on a lee shore by the prevailing south-westerly winds. § In the small exposures seen by the present writer the friable, spongy nodules of pale brown tufa show a disposition to run in seams, and appear to have been formed round rootlets, vegetable-fibre, caddis-cases, and (less often) shells of molluscs. Mammalian remains are less abundant in the upper marl than in the peat. Mr. Richards states that the relics of Equus cdbaUus, Cervus elaphus, and Capreolus caprea found by him in the New- bury trenches " always occurred in groups, parts of single skeletons being dug out bone by bone, and always quite unrolled," while * " Description of the Human and other Bones from the peat of Newbury in the Oxford University Museum." Trans. Newbury Dist. Field Club., vol ii., 1878, pp. 241-245. t Vide Mr. A. S. Kennard. t Jones, op. cit., p. 40. § Trana. Oeol. Soc, ser. 2 ; vol. ii., 1826, pp. 129-130. 112 ALLUVIUM. " in the peat the bones were scattered."* Messrs. A. 8. Kennard and B. B», Woodward have kindly prepared the revised lists of Recent or Holocene Mollusca from the higher beds of the Kennet Alluvium, and the comments thereon, which are given in Appendix B of this Memoir. Professor T. Rupert Jones has recorded the occurrence of the Oyprids Candona lucens, C. reptans, and Cypris setigera in the Peat series near Newbury.f 5. Although the ancient road-metal, or " black gravel," which over- lies the fresh-water marl under the main streets of Newbury is an artificial deposit, it has some claim to notice here, inasmuch as its formation was contemporaneous with that of part of the peat and upper marl outside the town. It attains a maximum thickiiess of seven feet. The mamnialian bones, etc., collected from it by Mr. Richards belong to : — Equus oaballus, Linn. Bos taurus, Linn. CervTis elaphus, Linn. Bos longifrons, Owen Ovis Sus sorofa, Linn. Capra hirous, Linn. Canis vulpes, Linn. The lowest layer yielded horse-shoes, tiles, nails, and other remains believed to be of Romano-British and Saxon dates ; above, were relics of the Middle Ages, and in the upper layers, within about 18 inches of the present road-surface, were cannon-balls and accoutrements belonging to the days of the Civil War.J Briefly stated, the history of the Alluvium near Newbury is as follows : — The termination of the epoch of the Valley Gravel was marked by a great, and apparei^tly rather sudden, diminution in the amount of water annually precipitated from the atmosphere in the Kennet Basin, and a corresponding shrinkage in the volume of the streams. From a considerable river fed largely by " run-ofi," or surface-water, carrying an abundance of mechanical waste, the Kennet dwindled to a small stream chiefly dependent, as at the present day, on the filtered water doled out to it by springs. With its lessened (and more constant) volume it was no longer able to fill the old channel, and although it is unlikely that the shrinkage took place so rapidly as to prevent the stream from efiecting any significant modification of the contours of its bed in response to the changing conditions, it is certain that the shoals and banks in which it had hitherto arranged its burden of gravel now became obstructions — to be circumvented, or overfiowed at low points. In the shallow depressions between such shoals the stream expanded into pools and lakelets, and on the bottoms of these bodies of slack water were laid down the stiff basal clay, and the succeeding shelly loam and clay of the lower marl. * Op. cit., p. 432. f " Description of the Entomostraca of the Pleistocene Beds of Newbuiy, Copford, etc.," Ann. and Mag. of Nat. History, ser. 2 ; vol., vi. 1850, pp. 25-27. X Richards, in Money's " Popular History of Newbury," 1905, p. 222. ALLUVIUM. 113 At a later stage the lakelets were encroached upon and choked by peat-moss, sedges, and stouter forms of vegetation; the valley - bottom being, by degrees, converted into a morass. The main body of the peat, with its intercalations of clay, loam, and marl, gradually levelled up the inequalities in the gravel, raised the lower parts of the valley-floor by some 15 to 20 feet, and considerably augmented the area Uable to floods. Hence, when (owing to some climatic or other change) the conditions became less favourable for the growth of peat-mosses, the lacustrine regime was restored, and the Kennet flood-plain was frequently covered by sheets of water whose wide extent may be inferred from the appreciable elevation above the river attained by the banks of upper marl and " strand," which were accumulated in them.* During the last few centuries artificial control of the main and side streams in the Kennet Valley has checked the formation of peat and marl, and such deposits of these kinds as are forming at the present day are confined to the small swampy patches in the water-meadows, to ditches, and to the old turbaries. The modern flood deposits are mainly fine loams and clays, with scattered shells and laminas of vegetable matter. If the Palseoliths found in the basal clay (bed 1) are of the same age as their matrix — and the character of the latter favours that view — the div'sions of the Kennet Alluvium described above may be thus classified : — • Modern flood loams. Recent Pleistocene. /Palaeolithic Age. /I. Greenish-yellowClay(? with i i Elephas primigenius). The AUuvium of the minor valleys, as seen in the stream-banks, is a brown loam ; sometimes nearly black, and peaty. The Recent land deposits of the area have been little studied. Shells of land Mollusca often abound in the marly and loamy washes on the slopes of the Chalk downs. During the construction of the Marborough and Devizes branch of the Great Western Railway Mr. T. Codrington observed an interesting deposit at the western end of the cutting at Crofton. " It was apparently strati- fied, and contained bones, teeth, or horns of ox, sheep, pig, badger and red deer ; with fragments of British and Roman pottery, * Prof. RoUeston (op. cit., p. 242) quotes a letter, addressed to Dean Buok- Jand, in 1825, by Mr. S. Hemsted of Newbury, in which it is stated that pre- vious to the drainage of Ham Marsh, " fifty years since," that tract was " almost constantly " under water. 911-1. r Historic, 4. Upper Marl, and "Strand" Iron, or Tufa. Bronze, and 3. Peat. Neolithic Ages. 2_ Lower Marl and Green Neolithic Age. Loam. 114 ALLUVIUM. calcined flints, and an abundance of land shells, especially of Gyclostoma degans."'* The cutting on the Dods- Down Brick-works siding intersects three trenches (lettered (a) in Fig. 2, p. 14) filled with grey loam containing shells of the same and of other common species. Neolithic implements and flakes have been found on the fields in many places. Mr. Bennett notes that " many worked flints " occur on the surface of the ground at a spot one mile north-west of Baydon church. * 3iag. Wilts. Arch, and Nat. Hist. Soc., vol. ix.. No. 26 (1865) p. 170 (separate issue, p. 4.) 115 CHAPTER XV. » ECONOMIC GEOLOGY. Soils. Possessing some slight acquaintance with the broader lithological featxires of the Upper Cretaceous and Eocene rocks in this country, one may form a very fair idea of the general character of the soil over wide tracts of the Hungerford district from an inspection of Sheet 267. One cannot, however, even with a fuller knowledge of the rocks themselves, and with some understanding of the physical processes involved in their degradation, ascertain, by that means, the precise nature of the soil at a given spot ; for the pro- ducts of the superficial disintegration of one formation, or group of strata, are very frequently encroached upon, covered, or replaced by those of another, lithologically dissimilar, group now or formerly outcropping at a higher level close by. Thus, over the greater part of the Upper Greensand in the Vale of Ham the soil is a light, calcareous, sandy loam, with scattered pieces of the harder layers of the underl3dng rock whence it is chiefly derived, but in a belt of variable width along the southern border of that area it is invaded and overwhelmed by a wash of fine chalk-rubble, greyish-marl, and angular flints from the neighbouring Chalk downs. Similarly, in the country occupied by the Eocene strata, the London Clay, and the stiSer mottled, plastic clays of the Reading Series, are often masked by a spread of sand and gravel derived from the Bagshot Beds and the Drift forming the adjacent higher ground. Some notes on the character of the argillaceous Drift deposits covering the Chalk in different parts of the district have been given in the chapter devoted to the Clay-with-Flints. It should be mentioned here that over most of the country coloured simply as Chalk on the Drift Map the soHd rock is capped by a loamy and flinty soil, not thick enough to be mapped as a geological formation, but often sufficiently so to render the ground profitably cultivable. Mr. Bennett has noticed that the soils of the Chalk downs are frequently thicker on slopes with southern and western aspects than on those facing in the opposite directions. From the agricultural point of view, the worst lands in the district are those on the Plateau Gravels, which are, in many places, devoid of true soil. It has long been recognised that the quality of the poorer soils on the Eocene Beds and the Clay-with-Flints can be greatly im- proved by repeated dressings of chalk, which breaks up the stiff 9114. 1 2 116 SOILS. clays, provides them and the sterile sands with the calcium car- bonate in which they are naturally deficient, and helps to retain the moisture in the gravels and stony loams. In the western and southern parts of the district chalk for this purpose is usually quarried in shallow pits, opened by the roadside, or in the midst of the fields. On the north-east, and especially in the valleys to the north of Newbury, the rock is (or has been) more often obtained from small underground workings of peculiar form, which are termed " chalk- wells." The following information as to these workings is derived from MS. notes left by Mr. Bennett. The well- shaft is usually about 4 feet in diameter, and from 15 to 40 feet in depth ; the latter depending on the thickness of the over-burden of Eocene Beds or Drift, and also on that of the weathered chalk, which is considered to be " weaker " {i.e., less efficient as a fertilizer) than the unweathered rock. It does not pay to sink wells where the depth of earth over the Chalk exceeds 15 feet. The required depth of shaft being attained, three or four " angles," or inclined headings, are driven obUquely-up wards nearly to the top of the CSialk ; the excavated material rolling down them to the bottom of the working, where it is placed in boxes or baskets and hauled up to the surface. When all the readily-obtainable chalk has been removed from the " angles," the " quoins," or partitions between them, are knocked away, and the ground above gradually subsides and fills the well. A well 20 feet deep (in the Chalk), with three angles, wiU dress 8 acres. A good dressing of 800 bushels to the acre will last for 20 years ; the cost per acre being from 30s. to 32s. Springs and Water Supply. The Hungerford district is, on the whole, well provided with water, and supplies sufficient for local requirements have been obtained in every formation, from the Valley Gravel down to the Upper Greensand, inclusive.* In the Vfper Greensand areas on the south-west springs occur at the boundary of the Lower Chalk, along the foot of the escarpment at Wilton Water, and in the bed of the Shalbourne on the western side of the village of that name. In the higher ground on the borders and in the central parts of these tracts water is obtained from the Selbornian rocks by means of wells which rarely exceed a depth of l60 feet. The well (sunk through Lower Chalk) at Savernake Station, on the South Western and Midland Junction Railway, is 120 feet deep ; that at Copyhold Farm, south of Ham, is 94 feet, and that at Bungum Barn, south-west of Inkpen, is 110 feet. The Challc is the principal natural reservoir for the district. Perennial springs from this formation, many of them of con- siderable volume, occur at short intervals along the bottom of the Kennet Valley. One of these, situated at Northoroft on the left bank of the stream near Newbury, and forming the chief supply of that town, yields 34,000 gallons * Remarks on the quaUty of the water from the various formations in this part of the country will be found in Messrs. Blake and Whitaker's " Water Supply of Berkshire," 1902 (Mem. Geol. Survey). SPRINGS. 117 an hour. Another, beneath the Valley Gravel at Barton Court, north-west of Kintbury, gives 40,000 gallons a day. At the water-cress beds a Httle more than half a mile to the west of Kintbury there are two strong springs, a few yaijtis apart, the waters of which appear to be derived from distinct sources, for the owner of the beds states that the more western spring becomes dirty soon after rain, while the other is unaffected. It is thought that the western spring is supplied, in part, by swallow-holes near Wallington House, one mile distant to the south-west. This is not unlikely, for a direct con- nection between a spring which breaks out on the right bank of the Bedwyn Stream, rather more than a mile to the west-south-west of Hungerford church, and the swallow-holes at the border of Stype Copse to the south, was demonstrated " by the late Mr. Blaokwell who coloured the water as it was swallowed up in the earth and witnessed its reappearance at the outlet at about the time expected." * Many of the springs in the Chalk valleys north of the Kennet are intermittent, their outlets lying below the upper limit of the zone within which the ground water-surface rises and falls with the seasons. Most of the facts in connection with the bournes and wells in those valleys which are given below were collected by Mr. Bennett. The Winterhourne usually rises, in January or February, a httle above Winterbourne village ; less ofteji at Egypt, and at long intervals as far up the valley as Eastley Farm. At Rookery Farm a well 90 feet deep, which was dry in the summer of 1886, had 40 feet of water in it in February, 1887 ; the rate of filling during January of the latter year indicating an average rise in the surface of saturation at that place of about 1 foot per day. In a well by the Schools at West Compton, in the Pang valley, the water sometimes rises 40 feet and overflows before it appears in the bed of the stream close by. In years of normal rain-fall the headwaters of the Lambourn lie {in spring and summer) between Lambourn and Upper Lambourn. After exceptionally- wet seasons springs break out in the higher branches of the vaUey, at Seven Barrows on the north, and at Middle Farm, Ashdown Park, and Russley Park on the north-west — all but the last-named lying outside the limits of Sheet 267. The Seven Barrows spring flowed in 1883 for three weeks. Close by, a well 75 feet deep, which has been known to be nearly dry, ran over when the bourne was in full flow. In the valley north of the Shefiords a bourne was running near Henley Farm in 1887. Mr. Bennett was informed that it had risen as far up as Greenway Cottages, nearly four miles above its junction with the Lambourn. A bourne occasionally rises at Hungerford Newtown, in Radley Bottom. It flowed in 1883 for the first time in forty-six years. A local fluctuation in the level of the ground water-stirface of over 40 feet is indicated in the well at the smithy. Lower down the valley water flows at Bottom Bam nearly every year, about February. The weU there is only 15 feet deep, but rarely overflows. In the Aldbourne Valley a spring occasionally rises at Warren Farm to the south of Sugar Hill, and at Picked Cross in the road between Aldbourne and Upper Upham. The villages and farms on the high ground between the valleys in this part of the district obtain a good supply of Chalk water from wells varying in depth from 100 to 350feet. A comparison of the * Codrington, " Geology of the Berks and Hants Extension, and Marl- borough Railways." Mag. Wilts. Arch, and Nat. Hist. Soc, vol. ix.. No. 26, 1865, p. 168 (p. 2 of separate publication). 118 WATER SUPPLT?. heights above Ordnance Datum at which water was reached in difierent places seems to show that the general slope of the surface of saturation towards the Kennet is diversified by rather strong undulations. For example, the ground-water under the Chieveley ridge, between that village and Seven Acres, stands from ten to thirty feet higher above O.D. than that under Beedon, between two and three miles farther north, where the wells are carried below the level of the Eiver Pang, to the east. The data are, however, too few and uncertain to be profitably tabulated. Three wells at Curridge descend nearly to the level of the Kennet, two and a half miles due south. In another, at Dean Wood, north-west of Stock- cross, the water-level (given by the weU-sinker) ia the same as that of the Lambourn at Bagnor, to the north-east, and a few feet higher than that of the Kennet, half a mile to the south. At Kingwood House, one and a half miles south-west of Lambourn, a well-boring 296 feet deep reached water within a few feet of the level of the bourne-channel in the town. (See Appendix A.) The well at Thatcham Vicarage, sunk through 85 feet of Valley Gravel and Reading Beds, and 100 feet of Chalk, proved to be an artesian, the water rising 2 feet above the surface, which is there about 30 feet above the Kennet. On the south side of the Kennet, there are at least two fairly deep Chalk-water wells. One of them, at Greenham Lodge on the plateau to the south of Newbury, was carried through 196 feet of Drift and Eocene Beds, and 339 feet into the Chalk, the top of which is there probably 30 to 40 feet below the level of the Kennet to the north. Considering the moderate depth at which a good supply of water is obtained in other wells in the neigh- bourhood the length of this boring is remarkable. In the second, at, Kirby House, near Inkpen, water was reached a little below the junction of the Chalk and Reading Beds, 225 feet from the surface, and about 300 feet above O.D., which is the level of the Kennet at Avington, three miles to the north. The boring was taken 95 feet lower, but the yield proving unsatisfactory another well was sunk in the bare Chalk a quarter of a mile to the south- south-west. No details of the latter are to hand, but it is believed that an adequate supply of water was obtained. It is interesting to note that in an old chalk-pit at the boundary of the Reading Beds by Bast Woodhay Rectory, only two miles to the south-east of Kirby House, water appeared and rapidly filled the workings, to a depth of 25 feet, during the wet winter of 1882.* Springs are not uncommon at the outcrop of the Chalk along the northern flank of the Kingsclere-Pewsey anticline, farther to the south-east ; and it would seem that the relatively impervious Eocene Beds which are sharply folded into the parallel trough (See Sketch-map, Fig. 4), act, directly or indirectly, both as a general barrier to, and as a local concentrator of, the under- ground water gravitating from the bare Chalk area of the Sydmon- ton Hills towards its outlets in the Valley of the Kennet. * From Mr. Bennett's notes. The pit is about 100 feet nearer to Ordnance Datum than the head of the older of the two wells at Kirby House. Water supply. 119 Of tke Eocene rocks, the chief water-bearing division is probably the Lower Bagshot Sands. On the Commons around Newbury there are many shallow wells (from 10 to 40 feet deep) in these beds ; and small springs and dip-wells abound on the sides of the valleys and combes cut through them in the country to the south of the Kennet. The sands of the Reading Series also yield a good supply at their outcrop on the sides of the Kennet valley near Newbury : and there is at least one well (at Henwick Farm, a mile and a quarter east of Shaw Church) which seems to be entirely in London Clay. Many of the minor valleys bottomed by the Eocene clays contain strips and patches of swampy groimd. The sundews Drosera rotundifolia and D. intermedia flourish on the spongy soil at the head of the combe (called The Gully) which notches the southern border of Snelsmore Common. The supply from the High-level Gravels is limited and inconstant. As has often been pointed out, the water from such deposits is particularly liable to contamination. The true sources of the water in the Y alley Gravel and Alluvium are often uncertain. Where these deposits rest upon the Chalk there is a strong probability that part of their water is derived from masked Chalk-springs. Prior to its analysis, the water of the Chalk-spring beneath the Valley Gravel at Northcroft, Newbury (See p. 116), was thought, by some, to be derived from the Kennet. Road Metal. Calcareous Sandstones of the Selbornian Series are, or have been, used as road metal in the Upper Greensand tracts of the Ham and Pewsey Vales. The material is ill-suited for the purpose, as it wears very unevenly. The flint and sarsen gravels occurring in all the larger valleys in the Chalk country, and underlying the heath and common-lands in the Eocene areas, are employed, with varying success, over the greater part of the district. Seasoned flints, gathered from the fields or dug from the stony developments of the Clay-with-Flints, also are used ; and where the Upper Chalk is regularly quarried the temptation to utilise the less durable and, in every respect, inferior raw nodules is seldom resisted. Angular flints from the soil and from the Valley Gravel in the Downs fetch from 4s. 6d. to 6s. the load. Eocene febUe-heds are now, happily, but little worked for road material. Pavements and cobble paths of sarsen are often seen in the western and north-western parts of the area. The labour involved in breaking the larger blocks into pieces of the requisite size is too great to allow of this stone being profitably employed as road metal where flints are easily procurable, and the material is no longer regularly worked for this purpose in the Hungerford district. At Lambourn, small sarsens from 6 to 18 inches in 120 ROAD METAL. diameter occasionally change hands at 2s. 6d. to 3s. the load, and may sometimes be had for the asking. The old sarsen street- paving in the village of Upper Lambourn is so rough as to be hardly passable for four-wheeled vehicles. The Mdhourn and Chalk Rocks, together with the nodular chalks above or below them, are still worked for mending the roads in the neighbourhood of their outcrops, but much less so than in former years. The peculiar hard chalk of Bedwyn is undoubtedly the best metalling-material to be found in the whole district. The roads in the neighbourhood of that village have a quality much above the average ; their surfaces being firm and commendably free from mud and dust. A slight tendency to lumpiness, which is noticeable in places, could be overcome, if it were worth while to do so, by the adoption of more eiScient methods of laying. Building Materials. The principal building material in the area included in Sheet 267 is h'ich — made, as a rule, from the natural loams, or from artificial mixtures of the sands and clays, of the Reading Beds. The sandier beds of the London Clay also are used, either alone, or with the Reading loams ; and there are a few yards in which the Lower Bagshot Clays are, or have been, worked. Bricks and tiles were formerly manufactured from the rearranged Eocene clays associated with the Clay-with-Flints. The bricks derived from all these sources are of various shades of red. In this district the brick and tile-making industry has long been a declining one. Many of the small yards on the main mass of the Eocene Beds are worked in a spasmodic manner. Flourishing for a decade, or perhaps a generation, they fall into disuse, to be revived, for a longer or shorter period, in response to some local demand, or as a result of individual enterprise. Tiles, drain-pipes, and chimney-pots are usually made in the brick-yards, but at Inkpen there are one or two small factories of these articles alone ; the raw material being obtained from the Bagshot Beds. Sarsens, both squared and un trimmed, were formerly much employed in the construction of dwelling-houses of aU classes at Lambourn, Aldbourne, Bedwyn, and other places in the western and north-western parts of the district, where those stones are abundant, but, owing to their unpleasant habit of " sweating " {i.e., of condensing atmospheric moisture on their surfaces) under rapid changes of temperature in damp weather, and also to the ease with which bricks can now be transported from a distance, their use for this purpose has been discontinued. At the present time they are reserved for garden walls and outhouses. A number of large slabs, set on edge, border the church-yard at Lambourn : others, similarly disposed, support raised paths, stream-banks, and, in one instance, an old cultivation-terrace, at or BUILDING MATERIALS . 121 near Aldbourne. An ancient structure of sarsens — probably a cromlecb — once stood at Hangman's Stone, to the south-west of Leckbampstead. Corner-guards and mounting-blocks of this rock occur tkrougbout the district. Eoughly-trimmed flints, usually accompanied by blocks of sarsou and of iron-sandstone, may be seen in the walls of many old buildings {e.g. the round towers of Welford and West Shefford Churches), and they are still used in the construction of farm-yard and garden walls. Chalk has never been much employed for building purposes in this part of the country. Blocks of the firm, rectangularly -join ted beds of the Terebratulina-zone occur in walls at Aldbourne. The small pit in this chalk at Fognam Barn, north-west of Lambourn, was worked not long since to obtain material for the yard -walls at that place. Upper Chalk is burnt for lime in the brickyards at Shaw, Kintbury, and Brick-kiln Copse. Near the last-named the Chalk is mined at a spot where the overburden of soil is only a few inches thick ; the object of the underground working being to obtain the cleaner and more massive unweathered rock. At Lambourn the chalky matrix of the Valley Gravel is used, in lieu of sand, to mix with lime, for mortar. The sands of the Reading and Bagshot Beds are dug for various purposes wherever they occur in mass ; and sharp sands and grit are screened out of the cleaner sorts of Plateau and River Gravel. Whiting. Whiting (often called "whitening") is manufactured at Kintbury from the very pure, soft chalk of the Uintacrinus-hani. It is prepared by grinding and washing the chalk in water ; the fine washings being run off into settling-tanks, whence they are dug out, and moulded by hand into cakes or balls, which are dried on slabs of chalk arranged on shelves in open sheds. In the Geological Survey Memoir on Sheet 12 (Old Series), published in 1862, Mr. H. W. Bristow remarks (pp. 17, 18): "At Kintbury there are five manufacturers of whiting, one of whom makes about 600 tons per annum, the others about 300 tons each, making a total of about 1,800 tons. Formerly it used to fetch 30s. per ton, now it only sells for 8s. per ton. Blocks of unmanufactured chalk are also sold, but to a less amount, perhaps 400 tons per annum altogether, at the same price as whiting The sum of £880 is annually made at the little village of Kintbury by the sale of chalk to districts in which it does not occur, the trade in this article being greatly facilitated by the economical mode of transmission by canal direct to Bristol." At the present time (1905) there appears to be only one whitmg factory at this place, and Mr. H. E.' Phillips, of Kintbury Mill— where the principal quarry is situated — informs the writer that, save for an occasional barge- load, the little chalk now excavated is used in the neighbourhood. The current price of chalk at Kintbury is about Is. per ton. The once important peai-ash industry long since became extinct, and the old diggings are now usually occupied by osier plantations. 122 APPENDIX A. Details of the Sections in Three of the Deeper Wells IN THE District. "Lambourn.* KiNGWooD House. ]Mr. W. I. Palmee, 1890. Information from Mr. Joyce, the well-digger. Dug-well, 6 feet internal diameter. Bricked 20 feet down, with 9-inch brickwork, and 6-inch concrete backing. Abont 707 feet above Ordnance Datum. Water-level 292 feet below surface. 1 Thick ness. Depth. 1 i Ft. in. Ft. in. Clay-with- ■flints, 10 feet] 1 [SoU, etc.] Earth - 2 6 2 6 L Clav, brown 7 6 10 Flints 1 11 Chalk rubble 10 21 Wedge chalk 19 40 Layer, flints - 4 40 4 Chalk - 11 51 4 Layer, flints - 3 51 7 Chalk 10 61 7 Flints - 4 61 11 Chalk laying three ways 16 77 11 Bed flints - _ 5 78 4 Chalk 6 84 4 Bed flint, thin Chalk 8 92 4 Bed flints _ 4 92 8 Chalk S 98 3 Thin bed flints Chalk 10 108 8 Thin bed flints 1 108 9 Chalk 3 111 Bed flints _ 14 HI li Chalk, iron rust, hard chalk 3 114 IJ Bed iron rust, flints _ 6 114 7i [Upper Chalk , 237 feet] * Chalk - Flints, black Chalk - 3 2 6 117 7i 118 li 120 14 Bed, black flints - _ 4 120 5i Chalk - 5 125 54 Bed, black flints - _ 6 125 114 Chalk 2 127 114 Bed flints _ 6 128 54 Chalk, red sands one side of well 5 133 54 Chalk and flints, mixed, not in beds 5 138 54 Layer flint [tabular-flint] 1 138 64 Chalk - 4 142 6i Layer flint [tabular-flint] __x 142 7 Chalk - 2 u' 144 7 Layer flint [tabular-flint] 1 144 8 Chalk - 3 147 8 Layer flint [tabular-flint] - _ 1 147 9 Chalk - 1 6 149 3 Three layers of flint apart in beds [tabular-flint] _ 2 149 5 Chalk 5 154 5 Flints mixed, blue and iron rust centre double beds _ 6 154 11 Chalk - 3 157 11 Flints [tabular-flint] - 1 158 * From Messrs. J. H. Blake and W, Whitaker's " Water Supply of Berk- shire from Underground Sources," pp. 54-5. 3Iem. Oeol. Survey, 1902. WELL SfiCTlOUS. 123 KiNGWOOD House. — Mr. W. I. Palmer, 1890. — confirmed. [Upper Chalk 237 feet] Thickness. [Middle Chalk 49 feet] Chalk - Flints [tahular-fiint] Chalk Layer of flint Chalk Flints mixed with rust iron Chalk- Double beds 2 ins. apart Chalk - - - Flints in thin beds Apart Isic], mixed with iron rust Chalk and flints " plum-pudding fashion " Bed flint Chalk . Bed flints Chalk Flint bed [tabular-flint] Chalk . . - - Flint bed [tabular-flint] Chalk - - - - Layer, flint [tabular-flint] Chalk - - - - - - Layer, flint [tabular-flint] Chalk - - Flint bed Chalk [Inoceramus sp. ? 220 to 245, and Bhynchonella sp. ? 220 to 230] Flint bed Chalk Flint bed [tabular-flint] Chalk, few soattery flints - Hard chalk, mixed iron rust [Chalk- rock, very characteristic, with numerous green-coated nodules] Very hard chalk Chalk Ft. in. 2 - -i 4 - 4 4 6 - 6 4 - 4 10 - 6 2 8 - 2 4 - 9 2 - 2 1 6 - 2 4 - 1 2 - 1 2 8 3 14 - 1 10 5 39 Depth . Ft. in. 160 160 Oi 164 Oi 164 4| 168 lOi 169 4i 173 4i 173 s; 183 Si 184 2.V 184 4i 192 4i 192 6! 196 61 197 U 199 ■i. 199 5. 206 5: 206 I:- 210 74 210 8A 212 Si 212 91 214 9i 215 3J 223 3i 223 64 237 64 237 71 247 71 252 257 296 0" 124 WELL SECTIONS. " Inkpen. KiEBY House, 1899. About 190 feet S.E. of mansion, and 25 feet west of road. Communicated by Messrs. Callus, Sons and May. ISTotes in square brackets from specimens supplied to [Mr. J. H. Blake], and from examination of tlie material at the spot. Shaft 11 feet, the rest bored. Dip of strata 26 degrees north. Water- level 225' feet from surface. Yield not much, in January, 1900. — Thickness. Depth. ft. in. ft. in. Soil, etc. 2 2 Sandy loam [mottled many colours. and containing ironstone nodule] 15 17 Hard brown sandstone 2 19 Sandy loam [mottled many colours] 10 29 Bed of pebbles mixed with sandy [Bagshot Beds, / loam •2 31 90 feet.] ) Mottled clay and loam with water 17 48 Mottled loam, more sandy 17 65 : Dark blue clay [stitf ] - 2 67 Bed of pebbles, mixed with blue clay 2 69 Sand and loam (^vith water) [coarse, loose, yellow sand with thin bands of pale gi'ey clay (" pipe-clay ") Mottled clay - - - 21 90 5 95 London clay [stiff dark blue, but weathering light grey, with sep- tarian nodules containing shells] 11 106 Clay-stone [large septarian nodules, [London Clay, ) 52 feet.]' ~ dark grey colour] - London clay [dark blue, weathering 2 108 light grey, with blackish sand at base] .... 33 141 Vellow clay, with small stones in it like gravel [probably part of base- ment bed, with the overlying blackish sand - 1 142 Yellow and red clay - 1 143 Yellow sands (with water) [light grey and brown micaceous] 13 156 Mottled clay [ash-colour 160 to 168, . mottled grey, brown, and pink soapy clay at 17.3] - Mottled sands (with water) [pale 19 175 brown and white] ■ 5 180 Mottled clays, very hard [mottled pink and grey soapy clay at 184 ; similar but more grey in it at 187 ; [Reading Beds, ^ dark grey soapy clay at 196, with 75 feet.] ' black carbonaceous matter in it at 198 ; mottled grey and brown clay at 206 ; dark grey clay at 208 ;|- loamy sand at 2101] 30 210 J , Green sands [olive coloured with i. shells ? oysters] 3 213 ,a Yellow clay and flints - 2 215 S ' [Blackish grey clay and dark S, \ green sandy loam' with shells o (? oysters), with layer of large ^ \ green-coated flints on top of \ chalk] 2 217 [Upper Chalk.] Chalk, with flints .... 103 320 0" '■ Ibid., pp. 52-3. Revised. t " [This dark grey clay at 208, and loamy sand at 210, probably belonga to the " bottom bed," making the latter 9 feet thick.— J. &. B.] " WELL SECTIONS. 125 " Newbury.* Geeenham Lodge, 1884. Bored and communicated by Messrs. Thomas Tilley and Sons. Piped to 233 feet. Plateau] [Lower Bag- shot Beds, / 43 ft. 2 in.] [London 60 ' don Clay, J ft. 10 in.] j [Reading Beds 80 ft.] Chalk Gravel and loam - Brown loam Brown sand (little water) Brown loam Blue clay - Black pebbles [flint] Blue sand (little water) Liglit stone - Dead blue sand Hard dark stone - Dark grey sand Blue sandy clay London clay Black pebbles [flint] Black sandy cjay Coloured sand and clay Coloured sand Light brown sand and water Coloured clay and sand Mottled clay Green sand and water Black clay - Hard dark green sand Flints - IHd., p. 62. Thickness. Ft. In. 12 2 4 10 7 1 6 4 6 - 4 4 8 1 2 5 3 35 10 - 6 24 6 4 12 15 8 15 13 4 8 6 - 6 339 Depth. Ft. in. 12 14 18 28 35 36 6 41 41 4 46 47 2 52 55 2 2 91 91 6 116 120 132 147 155 170 183 187 195 6 196 535 ''- 126 APPENDIX B. The Mollusca of the Holocene Alluvium oe the Kennet. By a. S. Kennard, F.G.S., and B. B. Woodward, F.L.S., F.G.S. The first account of the Mollusca from the Holocene Alluvium was given in 1854, by Professor T. Rupert Jones, and his list contained fifty-one names ;* that accurate observer, Mr. J. Pickering, being responsible for the determina- tions. This list has been reprinted, with more or less accuracy, on several occasions, whilst in 1897, after a careful examination of all the existing col- lections, we were able to list fifty species ; forty-two from extant specim0n§, and eight on the authority of Mr. Pickering, f We rejected the record of Hdix aspersa, as no examples were known to us, whilst at that time it was quite unknown from any pre-Roman bed in these islands. Since then, we have been credibly informed that examples of this species from Newbury are" preserved in a private collection ; and it is now known from several Neohthic deposits in England. In Ireland it is known even from a very early Cave deposit. Mr. H. J. Osborne White kindly sent us a sample of a tufaoeous loam from the " strand," at Halfway, which 3rielded a large number of moUusoa, and enabled us to confirm the record of one species ( Vitrea crystallina) which we had formerly listed on the authority of Mr. J. Pickering. The list now contains fifty-two species.J viz. : — Agriolimax agrestis (Linn.) Vitrea nitidula ( Drap. ) Vihrea radiatula (Aid.) ViPrea crystallina (Miill.) Vitrea fulva (Mull.) Vitrea nitida (Miill.) Arion ater (Linn.) Pyramidvla rotundata (Miill.) Valhnia pvlcheUa (MiiU.) Vallonia excentrica, Sterk. Hygromia hispida (Linn.) p. Hygromia granvlata (Aid.) p. Hygromia rufescens (Perm.) Helicigona arbustorum (Linn.) Helicella itala (Linn.) Hdix aspersa, MiiU. Hdix nemoralis, Linn. Ooehlicopa liibrica (Miill.) Jaminia muscorum (Linn.) Vertigo anti vertigo (Drap.) Vertigo pygmiva (Drap.) Succinea putris (Linn.) Succinea degans, Risso Garychium minimtim, Miill. Ancylus fluviatilis (Miill.) Acroloxus lacustris (Linn.) p. Limncea auricularia (Linn.) Limnosa pereger (Miill.) Limncea palustris (Miill.) Limncea truncatula (Miill.) P. Limncea stagnalis (Linn.) Planorbis corneus (Linn.) Planorhis albus, WcHi. Planorbis glaber, Jeff. Planorbis crista (Linn.) Planorbis complanatus (Miill.) Planorbis vortex (Linn.) Planorbis spirorbis (Linn.) Planorbis contortus (Linn.) p. Planorbis fontanus (Light.) p. Physa fontinalis (Linn.) Physa hypnorum (Linn.) Bythinia tentaculata (Linn.) Bythinia leachii (Shepp.) Valvata piscinalis (MiiU.) Valvata cristata (MiiU.) p. Neritina fluviatilis (Linn.) Sphcerinm corneum, Linn. Pisidium amnicum (Miill.) Pisidium pusillum (Grael.) Pisidium fontinale (Drap.) Pisidium milium (Held.) On comparing this Ust with the species known from the Holocene Alluvium of the Thames itself there will be noted a great similarity, but there is one * T. Rupert Jones, " Lecture on the Geological History of the Vicinity of Newbury," 1854, pp. 41-2. f Quart. Journ. Oeol. Soc, Vol. liii., 1897, pp. 434-5. j Those lettered P. being given on the authority of Mr. J. Pickering. HOLOCENE MOLLUSCA. 127 noteworthy difference : at Newbury no examples of Planorbis slroemii, West., have so far been detected. This species is characteristic of nearly all the Thames deposits, with the exception of those below London ; but even there, though not known from the beds of the main stream, it is extremely common in the Alluvium of the River Lea, at Walthamstow ; whilst it has also been found in the Colne Alluvium, at Uxbridge. We have previously pointed out that tjie species from one section in these beds are often absent from another exposure ; so that it is quite possible that the form may yet be found at New- bury. We had a further instance of this difference in the material sent by Mr. White. In this, Planorbis aibus was very common, whilst in the material which had been examined by us on previous occasions it was extremely scarce. On the other hand, Vertigo antivertigo, which was abundant in former material, was represented only by a single specimen in the last sample. As the relative frequency of species in any deposit is of some importance, we give the results obtained from the material sent by Mr. White. Agriolimax agresiis (Linn.) (2 examples). Vitrea nitida (Miill.) (2 examples). Yitrea nitidula (Drap.) (1 example). Vitrea orystalUna (Miill.) (2 examples). Pyramidvla rotundata (Miill.) (6 examples' Hygromia Mspida (Linn. ) (4 examples). Hdix nemoraiis, Linn. (3 examples). CooUicopa luhrica (Miill.) (1 example). Vertigo antivertigo (Drap.) (l sample). Ancylus fluviatUis (Miill.) (common). Acroloxus lacustris (Linn.) (common). Limnma pereger (Miill.) (common). Planorbis crista (Linn.) (2 examples). Planorbis contortus (Linn) (10 examples). Planorbis complanatus (Mull.) (1 ex- ample). Planorbis albus (Linn.) (common). Valvata piscinalis (Miill.) (common). Valvata cristata, Miill. (common). Byfhinia tentacvlata (Linn.) (common). Bythinia leachii (Shepp.) (10 examples). Pisidium amnicum (Miill.) (common). It _also yielded one bone of the frog {Rana iemporaria). Limncea palustris (Miill.) (2 examples). Judging from the general facies, this deposit [the " strand "] is probably lacustrine, and this is borne out by an examination of the examples of Limncea pereger, which are identical with the form now living in large sheets of water. 128 APPENDIX C. Insoluble Matter in Samples of Upper Chalk. . By W. Pollard, M.A., D.Sc, F.G.S., and Mr. H. H. Thomas, M.A., B.Sc, F.G.S. Insoluble Residue in Specimens of Uppbe Chalk collected by Mr. Osboene White. Laboratory number 193. Actinocamax quadratus-zone ; Layland's Green (KiDiok's Pit), Kintbury, Berks. (Lai, 51° 23' 45". Long., 1° 26' 35".) „ ,, 194. Actinocamax qiiadratus-zone ; Extreme base. J mile S.W. of Lower Farm, Winterbourne. (Phospbatio chalk, bed 4.) (Lat., 51° 26' 50". Long., 1° 21' 25".) 195. Marsupites-zone, Upper part. " Bedwyn Stone." Bloxham Copse (S. edge of), Bedwyn. (Lat., 51° 22' 10". Long., 1° 37' 0":) 196. Marsupites-zone ; Uintacriniis-hand (base). Shaw Kiln, West pit, near Newbury (Lat., 51° 24' 35". Long., 1° 18' 25".) ,, 197. Micraster cor-anguinum-zone ; Upper part. Bee- don Hill road-cutting. (Lat., 51° 29' 27". Long., 1° 17' 50".) „ 198. Micraster cor-anguinum-zone ; Upper half J mile S.S.W. of Rowbury Farm, Leckhampstead. (Lat., 51° 28' 5". Long., 1° 22' 15".) ,, ,, 199. Micraster cor-angtiinum-zone ; Upper half. I mile N.N.B. of Boxford Church (bed 1). (Lat., 51° 26' 42". Long., 1° 22' 55".) ,, „ 200. Micraster cor-testudinarium-zone ; Lower part. I mile S.E. of Bancroft Farm, Burghclere.* (Lat., 51° 19' 42". Long., 1° 19' 0".) ., „ 201. Holaster planus-zone ; near middle. J mUe S.E. of Duncroft Farm, Burghclere.* (Lat., 51° 19' 42". Long., 1° 19' 0".) — 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 HoO (Moisture) 105°C. •22 •34 ■14 •19 •32 •21 •21 •44 •28 Kesidue 105° C. •90 1^70 •48 •74 1-37 •86 •77 2'36 1-10 Ecsidue, Ignited •82 1-51 •45 •71 1'29 •78 ■70 2^09 •98 The Insoluble Residue was obtained as follows : — 5 grams of the powdered chalk (30 hole) was put in a beaker and 200 co. of cold hydrochloric acid (1 part of acid [S.G. 1^16] to 4 of water) poured on to it, stirred occasionally, and allowed to settle. Tie precipitate was collected on * In the Andover District (Sheet 283). CHALK RESIDUES. 129 a weighed filter, washed twice with cold water, then with hot water til] free from chlorine. It was then dried at a temperature of 105° 0. till weight was constant. The weight at 105° C. having been obtained, the residue was ignited in a porcelain crucible till weight was again constant. W. Pollard. Microscopic Chaeactees. Residues bearing the Laboratory numbers 193 to 201 inclusive were ex- amined microscopically. {See Table p. 128.) The bulk of the residue consists of impalpable clay which it is impossible to resolve by the microscope into its component minerals. In aU probability it is chiefly finely divided silica and micaceous material. The heavy residue, which never forms more than about 3 per cent, of the total residue and is generally much less, was examined. Laboratory number 193. Actinocamax qwidratus-zone ; Layland's Green (Killick's Pit), Kintbury, Berks. Fairly large heavy residue, consisting chiefly of a brown mineral occurring in flat flakes bounded by two cleavages. The flakes are rather ragged, optically biaxial, show monoclinic symmetry, with an extinction of about 9° on the cleavage plane. They show an optic axis emerging at 50''-55°, in air, with the normal to the cleavage. The zone of the cleavage has always a positive sign, so therefore the zone axis of the cleavages makes an angle of 9° with the axis of least elasticity C. Flakes reach dimensions such as '15 to -2 mm. by -1 to '15 mm. Pleochroism moderately strong. This mineral seems to be a hornblende, approximating to the basaltic type. Quartz occurs in sub-rounded grains -3 mm. in diameter, while smaller fragments, which are abundant, are quite angular. Tourmaline ; '1 mm. by '04 mm., blue aluminous variety ; rare ; only one grain noted. Zircon ; a few colourless corroded prisms and broken grains ; not common. Laboratory number 194. Actinocamax quadratus-zone ; extreme base, ^ mile. S.W. of Lower Farm, Winterbourne (phosphatic chalk, bed 4). Heavy residue fairly large ; consists almost entirely of pale green glauconite, existing as casts of the chambers of Gldbigerina and Textvlaria, the simple spherical chambers of the former measuring up to '15 mm. in diameter. There is a remarkable absence of casts of sponge-spicules in glauconite. Quartz occurs in fairly-angular to sub-rounded grains, ranging up to '3 mm., full of inclusions of an opaque dusty material and of gas cavities. A few small chalcedonic masses, chiefly spherical in outline, also occur. Zircon ; a few minute badly formed prisms were noticed. Laboratory number 195. Marsupites-zaae, Upper part, Bedwyn Stone, Bloxham Copse (S. edge of), Bedwyn. Heavy residue almost nil ; only quartz detected, existing as subangular grains '25 to "3 mm. in diameter. The residue, as a whole, is much iron- stained. Laboratory number 196. Marsupites-zone. Uintacrinus-ha.nd (base), Shaw Kiln, west pit, near Newbury. Similar in all respects to the above except in being less Lron-stained. Laboratory number 197. Micraster cor-anguinum-zone, upper part, Beedon HUl road-cutting. Heavy residue is small, and consists chiefly of iron-ores (limoniie and some ilmenite) with a few angular quartz-gtSbms. A very few grains of glauconite after Olobigerina were noticed. Laboratory number 198. Micraster cor-anguinum-zone, upper half, J mile S.S.W. of Rowbury Farm, Leckhampstead. Small heavy residue consists of, minute angular quartz-gtains, undissolved iron ores (chiefly limonite), and a few grains of glauconite. 9114. K 130 CHALK RESIDUES. Laboratory number 199. Micraster cor-anguinum-zoae, upper half, J mile N.N.E. of Boxford Cburoh (bed 1). Small residue, consisting almost entirely of angular gitarte-grains and glauconite in small quantity. Quartz ; '15 to '2 mm., fairly abundant. Glauconite ; as casts after foraminifera and spicules. Oldbigerina ard Textularia represented. Zircon ; a few rounded grains. Laboratory number 200. Micraster cor-testudinarium-zone, lower part, J mile S.B. of Dunoroft Farm, Burghclere. Fairly large heavy residue, consisting almost entirely of ^foMco»i/e,occurring as casts of foraminifera and sponge -spicules ; of the foraminifera, Olobigerina is the most abundant, Textularia next so. The spicules measure '5 to? '05 mm. and are tetractinellid. Of detrital minerals, quartz is the most abundant, reaching "3 mm. Chalcedony ; in spherical grains with radiate structure. Zircon ; in rounded and broken prisms, • 05 mm. long. Leucoxene ; a few grains, decomposition products from ilmenite. Laboratory number 201. Holaster planus-zone, near middle, J mile S.E. of Duncroft Farm, Burghclere. Similar in all respects to above (200). Anchor-shaped spicules were noticed. There seems a prevalence of the genera Olohijerina and Lagena; Cristellaria '! was noted. 131 o OS 1 - '; : c < 3. 3 •4 t > M. cor-angui- num. M. cor-testu- dinarium. H. planus. 03 1 1 o . §1 This sample and the one below are very pure chalks, being almost 1 1. H-4 H ' 1 o m ■♦J § o -j: d "J 11 1 O p. d ft •a^inanqj 1 1 1 1 bo 1 1 ^ a If •a^raoraiT; 1 1 Ah 1 s •43 . 13 en 1 ■aijraoon'BjQ 1 1 1 ^1 (if S a§ <1 •nooji2 so ^3 6D 1 1 1 1 so ^3 P^ g 60 •8m|'Brainox 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 ! 1 8p«9iq -ujoH a o S a o O 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 •^ains JO suijojjaq^o 1 1 1 1 so ^3 a, rt Ph g be •K^JBnf) II 03 a S If GO 2 s S !s ■§1 g^§ a i o O p il a s g^ a s d o a a o O •anpisgy; JO bzig ^o5 11 ^6 la S m "cS s "a 1 >?6 ■si" •jaqran^ ifjo^Bioq'B'j CO I— 1 C5 to I— 1 1— 1 I— i I— ( O o o 9114. k2 132 APPENDIX D. Bibliography. List of PRiNCirAL Woeks on the Geology of the District. Geological Survey Publications. 1. — Mafs. Sheet 12. By W. T. Avbline, H. W. Beistow, and R. Tebnch, 1860. Sheet 13. By W. T. Avbune, W. Whitakbe, and others, 1860. Sheet 34. By W. T. Avelinb, and E. Hull, 1857 and 1859. Sheet 14. By W. T. Avelinb and H. W. Bbistow, 1857 and 1859. Sheet 267. New Series. By F. J. Bennett. 1898. 2. — Memoirs, The Geology of Parts of Wiltshu-e and Gloucestershire (Sheet 34). By A. C, Ramsay, W. T. Avbline and E. Hitll. 1858. The Geology of Parts of Oxfordshire and Berkshire (Sheet 13). By E. Hull and W. Whitakbe. 1861. The Geology of Parts of Berkshire and Hampshire (Sheet 12). By H. W. Beistow and W. Whitakbe. 1862. The Geology of the London Basin. By W. Whitakbe (Memoirs of the Geological Survey, vol. iv.), 1872 [Remarks on a well at Kirby House, Inkpen] by J. H. Blake, in Summary of Progress of the Geological Survey and Museum for 1899, p. 140. 1900. The Water Supply of Berkshire. By J. H. Blake, with contributions by W. Whitakbe. 1902. Note on the Palaeolithic Gravel of Savernake Eorest, Wiltshire. By C. Reid, in Summary of Progress of the Geological Survey and Museun>. for t90S, p. 208. 1903. Reprinted in Man, April, 1903. The Cretaceous Rocks of Britain, Vol. i. The Gault and Upper Greensand of England, 1900. Vol. ii. The Lower and Middle Chalk of England, 1903, Vol. iii. The Upper Chalk of England, 1904. By A. J. Jukes-Beowne, with contributions by W. Hill. Other Works. 1741. Hbetpoed, Peancbs, Coitntess of. Letter to the Countess of Pom- fret. (Peat). Waylen's " History of Marlborough." 8vo. 1854. 1758. Collet, J. An Account of the Peat Pit near Newbury, in Berkshire. (Letter to the Bishop of Ossory.) Phil. Trans., vol. 1, pt. 1. p. 109. T809. Mavok, W. General View of the Agriculture of Berkshire. 8vo. London. 1813. Lysons, D. and S. Magna Britannia, vol. i., part 2. Berkshire (with a Geological Description by Dr. Beke, and Note of Fossils, etc.), pp. 187-193. 4to. London. 1819. Smith, W. Geological Map of Berkshire. Geological Map of Wiltshire. BlBLiOORAPHY. 13.) 1826. BrcKLAND, W. On the Formation of the Valley of Kingsclere and other Valleys, etc. Trans. Oeol. Soc, ser. 2, vol. ii., p. 119. 1846. Owen, R. British fossil Mammals and Birds. 8vo. London. 1847. Pbbstwioh, J. On the Main Points of Structure and the Probable Age of the Bagshot Sands. Quart. Jcmrn. Qeol. Soc, vol. iii., p. 378. On the Probable Age of the London Clay. Quart. Journ. Oeol. Soc, vol. iii., p. 354. 1850. Prestwich, J. The Basement Bed of the London Clay. Quart. Journ. Oeol. Soc, vol. vi., p. 252. Jones, T. Ettpbbt. Description of the Entomostraoa of the Pleistocene Beds of Newbury, Copford, etc. Annals and Mag. Nat. Hist., ser. 2, vol. vi., p. 25. 1854. Pbbstwioh, J. The Woolwich and Reading Series. Quart. Journ. Oeol. Soc, vol. x., p. 76. On the Thickness of the London Clay, etc. Quart. Journ. Oeol. Soc, vol. x., p. 401. Jones, T. Rupert. Lecture on the Geological History of the Vicinity of Newbury, Berks. 8vo. London and Newbury. 1861. Whitakbr, W. On a Reconstructed Bed on the Top of the Chalk and underlying the Woolwich and Reading Beds. Quart. Journ. Oeol. Soc, vol. xvii., p. 527. 1862. Whitakbr, W. On the Western End of 4)he London Basin. Quart. Journ. Oeol. Soc, vol. xviii., p. 258. 1865. Codrinqton, T. The Geology of the Berks and Hants Extension and Marlborough Railways. Wilts. ArchcEol. and Nat. Hist. Soc. Mag., vol. ix. (No. 26) p. 167. On the Drift Deposits of the Newbury District. Wilts. Archceol. and Nat. Hist. Soc Mag., vol. ix. 1869. Adams, J. Geological Sketch of the Kennet VaUey. Wilts. Archceol. and Nat. Hist. Soc Mag., vol. xi., p. 268. 1871. Adams J. On the Sarsen Stones of Berkshire and Wilts. Trans. Newbury Dist. Field Club, vol. i., p. 103 ; and Oeol. Mag., Dec. 1, vol. x. (1873), p. 198. 1872. Jones, T. Rupert. On the Geology of the Kingsclere Valley. Oeol. Mag., Deo. 1, vol. viii., p. 511. 1873. Jones, T. Rupert. The Geology of the Kennet Valley. . Trans. Newbury Dist. Field Club, vol. i., p. 21. Whitakbr, W. Newbury District Field Club (taken from the Newbury WeeUy News, No. 297, Oct. 10, 1872). Oeol. Mag., Deo. 1, vol. x., p. 142. 1875. Jones, T. Rupert. Notes on some Sarsden Stones. Oeol. Mag., Deo. 2, vol. ii., p. 588. 1876. Bakrois, C. Reoherohes sur le Terrain Cr^tace sup&ieui de I'Angle- terre et de I'lrlande. Mem. Soc Oeol. du Nord. 4to., Lille. 1878. Gbover, J. W. Report on the new Water Supply at Newbury. Trans. Newbury Dist. Field Club, vol. ii., p. 246. Jones, T. R. and W. Whitakeb. Excursion to Shaw, etc. Trans. Newbury Dist. Field Club, vol. ii., p. 1. Palmer, S. On the Antiquities found in the Peat of Newbury. Trans. Newbury Dist. Field Club, vol. ii., p. 123, and Appendix. p. 135. Rollbston, J. Description of the Human and other Bones from the Peat of Newbury in the Oxford University Museum. Trans. Newbury Dist. Field Club, vol. ii., p. 241. 134 BIBLIOGEAPHY. 1879. JoNBs, T. RuPBBT [and B. B. Woodward]. Excursion to Newbury. Proc. Geol. Assoc, vol. vi., p. 185. 1882. Whitakbb, W. List of Works on the Geology and Palaeontology of Oxfordshire, of Berkshire, and of Buckinghamshire. Eeport. Brit. Assoc, for 1882, p. 327. 1884. Jones, T. Rupbet. Some Geological Notes on the Neighbourhood of Newbury, Berks. Oeol. Mag., Dec. 3, vol. i., p. 122. 1886. Jones, T. Eupbbt. History of the Sarsens (Part 1). Wilts. Archceol. and Nat. Hist. Soc. Mag., vol. xxiii., pp. 122-154. 1887. Ibvinq, a. The Physical History of the Bagshot Beds of the London Basin. Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc, vol. xliii., p. 374. WooDWABD, H. B. The Geology of England and Wales. (Second Edition) 8vo. London. 1888. Irving, A. Supplementary Notes on the Stratigraphy of the Bagshot Beds of the London Basin. Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc, vol. xliv., p. 164. Jukes-Brownb, a. J. The Building of the British Isles. (Second Edition, 1892). 8vo. London. Prestwich, J. Geology. 2 vols. Roy. 8vo. Oxford. 1889. Hbreies, R. S. Excursion to Newbury, etc. Proc. Geol. Assoc, vol. xi., p. xiii. MoNCKTON, H. W. and R. S. Herkies. On some Bagshot Pebble Beds and Pebble Gravel. Proc Geol. Assoc, vol. xi., p. 13. 1890. Bbnnbtt, F. J. Hawkins' Descriptive Guide to Newbury and Neighbourhood. 12mo. Newbury. Prestwich, J. On the Relation of the Westleton Beds, etc. Three parts. Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc, vol. xlvi., pp. 84, 120, 155. 1891. Ibvinq, A. The Geological History of the Thames Valley. Science Gossip, May and June. 1892. MoNCKTON, H. W. On the Gravels South of the Thames from Guildford to Newbury. Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc, vol. xlviii., p. 29. 1893. Irving, A. On Post-Eocene Surface Changes in the London Basin. Oeol. Mag., Dec. 3, vol. x., p. 211. 1895. Money, W. On the Prehistoric and Mediasval Antiquities found at Newbury during the Drainage Operations in 1894. Trans. Newbury Dist. Field Clvb, vol. iv., p. 206. 1897. Richards, E. P. On the Gravels and Associated Deposits at Newbury. Quart. Journ. Oeol. Soc, vol. liii., p. 420. Kbnnard, a. S., and B. B. Woodward. Notes on the MoUusca of the Kennet Valley Deposits. (Appendix to last paper.) Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc, vol. liii., p. 434. 1898. MoNCKTON, H. W. On some Gravels of the Bagshot District. Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc, vol. hv., p. 184. Salter, A. E. Pebbly and other Gravels in Southern England. Proc. Oeol. Assoc, vol. xv., p. 264. 1900. Buckman, S. S. Excursion Notes : Chiefly on River Features. Salis- bury Meeting. Proc. Gottes. Nat. Fidd Club, vol. xiii., p. 186. 1 901. Dixon, S. B. [re implementiferous gravel of Knowle Farm, Savemake]. Marlborough Coll. Nat. Hist. Soc. Report for 1901. Jones, T. Rupbet. History of the Sarsens (Part 2). Oeol. Mag., Dec. 4, vol. viii., pp. 54 and 115. Judd, J. W. Note on the Structure of Sarsens. Geol. Mag., Dec. 4, vol. viii., p. 1. Kbnnabd, a. S., and B. B. Woodward. The Post-Pleistocene Non- marine MoUusca of the South of England. Proc. Geol. Assoc, vol. xvii., p. 213. BIBLIOGRAPHY. 135 1901. WiLLETT, B. H. On a Collection of Palaeolithic Implements from Savcr- nake. Journ. Anihrop. Inst., vol. xxxi., p. 310. 1902. White, H. J. Osbobnb. On a Peculiarity in the Course of certain Streams in the London and Hampshire Basins. Proc. Geol. Assoc, vol. xvii., p. 399. Excursion to Kinthury, Tnkpen, and Woodhay. Proc. Oeol. Assoc, vol. xvii., p. 388. 1903. CuNKiNQTON, W. and W. A. On a Recent Find of Palaeolithic Flint- Implements at Knowle (\A'ilts). Beport Brit. Assoc, for 1902, p. 759. 1905. Richards, E. P. The Geology of Newbury and District. In W. Money's " Popular History of Newbury " (Svo. London and Newbury), p. 197. Saltbk, a. E. On the Superficial Deposits of Central and Parts of Southern England. Proc. Oeol. Assoc, vol. xix., p. 1. Teeachee, Ll. Excursion to the Berkshire Downs. Proc. Oeol. Assoc, vol. xix., p. 226. 1906. CoMYNS, P. Mate's Illustrated Guide to Newbury. Bournemouth. Jukbs-Beowot!, a. J. The Clay-with-Plints ; its Origin and Dis- tribution. Quart. Journ. Oeol. Soc, vol. Ixii., p. 132. Lydekkee, R. Palaeontology. In " The Victoria History of the Counties of England." Berkshire, Vol. i., p. 25. L. Imp. 8vo. London. MoNOKTON, H. W. Geology. In " The Victoria History of the Counties of England." Berkshire, Vol. i., p. 1. L. Imp. Svo. London. Teeachee, Ll. and H. J. Osboenb White. The Higher Zones of the Upper Chalk in the Western part of the London Basin. Proc. Oeol. Assoc, vol. xix., p. 378. White, H. J. Osboenb. Excursion to Boxford and Winterbourne (Berks). Proc Geol. Assoc, vol. xix., p. 349. and Ll. Teeachee. The Phosphatio Chalks of Winterbourne and Boxford (Berkshire). Qucirt. Journ. Oeol. Soc, vol. Ixii., p. 499. II. d. Anok. Lambourn VaUey Railway. Excursions to King Alfred's Country — A Descriptive Sketch of the Route. 12mo. Newbury. 136 INDEX. Acroloxus lacustris, 126, 127. Actinocamax, 30. granulaius, 31-35, 37, 39- 41. , features of, 34, 35, 41. plenus, 12-14. quadratus, 32, 33, 40, 41. zone, see Zone. verm, 32, 33, 35 Adams, Rev. J., 53, 133. Aggradation of valleys in Recent Period, 112. Agriolimax agrestis, 126, 127. Aldbourne, 1, 2, 11, 13, 15, 16, 19, 20, 83, 117, 120, 121. , River, 1, 78, 104. Aldermaston, 3, 89, 110. Aldershot (Hampshire), 69. Allen, H. A., 31. Alluvium, 4, 81, 93, 96, 98, 101, 102, 106-114, 119, 126, 127. of Kennet Valley, 35, 93, 97, 101, 107-113, 126, 127; sequence of beds in, 108. of minor valleys, 113. Alum Bay, Eocene beds at, 60, 73. Ammonites, 6, 21. [Pachydiscusi feramplus, 19, 21. [Schlcenbachia] mantelU, 9, rostratus, 5, 6, 9. — ■ varians, 9, 12, 13. , see also under Zone. Ancydus fluviatilis, 126, 127. Andover district, 2, 128. " Angles " in Oialk-wells, 116. Anticline, The Kingsclere-Pewsey, 4, 5, 46, 68-70, 74, 76-80, 118. Anville's Farm (near Hungerford), 35. Archsoology of Kennet Alluvium, 107-112. Arctic conditions, 82, 95. Arion ater, 126. Arlington Manor (near Donnington), 54. Artesian well at Thatcham, 118. Arvicola amphihius, 110. Ash (Surrey), 69. Ashbourne Warren Farm (near Ald- bourne), 16. Ashdown Park (near Lambourn), 103, 117. Ashdown Sand of Hastings, 53. Ashmore Green, 72. Ass, The, 109, 110. Asteroid-ossicles in Chalk, 15, 21, 23-28, 30, 33, 35, 36, 40. in Reading Beds, 50. Attenuation of Marsupites-zon&, 34. Aurochs, see Bos primigeniiLS. Autogenetic streams, 79. AvELiNE, W. T., 8, 47, 72, 132. Avellana, 19. Avington, 26, 44, 97, 98, 100, 101, 107, 118. Avicula gryphctoides, 6, 9. Avon, The Hampshire, 79. Valley, Pleistocene beds of, 106. Axford, 2, 26, 96, 101, 107. Farm, 101. Badger, see Meles taxus. Bagnor, 23, 30, 100, 103, 104, 118. " Bags " in the Chalk, 82. Bagshot (hamlet near Shalbourne), 60, 61, 67. Bagshot Beds, Lower, 4, 47, 61-76, 87,90,115,119, 121, 124, 125. . . Middle, 47, 74, 76. , Upper, 76. Bagshot Farm, 61. Hill, 61. Bairdia suhddtoidea, 25. Ball Hill, 90. Barium sulphate below ReadingBeds, 51. Babrois, De. Charles, 43, 133. Barrymores (near Kintbury), 41. Bartholomew Street (Newbury), 110. Barton Court (near Kintbury), 99, 117. Barracks, The, (near Hungerford), 27. Base-level, The " Silohester," 93, 94. Basford Hill, 30, 31, 87, 93. Basement-Bed of London Clay, 49, 51-53. 56, 58, 59, 61-69, 88, 104, 124. , fossils in, 61, 65, 67. , flint- pebbles in, 50, 51, 53, 56, 58, 59, 61, 63-65, 67, 69, 88, 104. Basingstoke, 45. Bath Road, 26, 27, 98, 104. Bathocypris silicula, 33. INDEX. 137 Baydon, 2, 16, 20, 83, 114. Bayflelds, 83. Bayus, Miss M., 11. Bear, see Ursus arctos. Beaver, The, 109, 110. Bedwyn, see Great and Little Bed- wyn. Bedwyn Brail, 36, 37, 104. Brook, The, 3, 78, 79, 117. Common, 27, 63, 84, 104. Stone (or "Roach"), 37- 39, 78, 120, 128, 129. Valley, The, 36, 37, 79, 91 Bedwyns, The, 3, 38, 49, 63, 75. Beedon, 23, 53, 54, 83, 118. Common, 52. Hill, 23, 45, 52, 54, 128, 129. Belemnite Marls, The, 12-14. Bdemnitella mucronata-zone, see Zone. Benham Lodge, 30, 110, 111. Park, 30, 88, 101. Bennett, F. J., 7, 11, 16, 20, 59, 66, 72, 74, 83, 86, 88, 90, 91, 97, 100, 102, 108, 114-118, 132, 134. Berenicea polystoma, 25, 27. Berkshire Downs, 1, 2, 4, 71, 119. monocline, 4, 76. Berry's Farm (near West Woodhay), 28. Bird's Heath, 60, 62, 68. Farm, 62. Bishopstone Down, 20. Bison, The, 100. " Black gravel " of Newbury, 112. Blaokwbll, Me., 117. Blake, J. H., 66, 116, 124, 132. Bloxham Copse (near Bedwyn), 37, 128 129 Boar, The, 99, 109, 110, 112, 113. Bookhampton Farm (near Lam- bourn), 19. Borings (natural) in Chalk, 48, 50, 57. Borough Hill, 25, 30, 31, 34, 55, 87. Camp, 31. Bos taurus, 99, 110-113. longifrons, 110, 112. primigenius, 99, 100, 110, 111. Bothamstead, 83. Bottom Barn (near Avington), 117. Bottom-Bed of Reading Beds, 25, 29, 30, 48-51, 52, 55- 59, 61-64, 67, 68, 124. , derived fossils in, 36, 48. . flint-pebbles in, 48, 50, 52, 57, 59, 62. , lignite in, 48, 50. Bottom Gravels, 101-103. Bourgueiicrinus, 23-26, 30, 33, 35, 40; "nipple-shaped," 36. Bourne, The, see Collingbourne. Bournemouth, Bagshot Beds at, 73. Pleistocene Beds at, 106. Bournes, flowing of, 117. Boxford, 11, 24, 25, 31, 39, 55, 128, 130. Rectory, 31. Bracklesham Beds, 47, 74, 76. Bradford Farm (near Stockcross), 26. Brail Farm (near Bedwyn), 36, 62. Breccias in Reading Beds, 36, 38, 39, 53. Brickearth, 4, 54, 57, 81, 83, 101. Brick-Kiln Copse (near Hungerford), 27, 60, 84, 91, 121. Bricks, 60, 73, 120. Brightwalton, 83. Brimpton Common, 89. Bristol, chalk sent to, 121. Beistow, H. W. 47, 59, 75, 121, 132. British Museum (Natural History), 9. Broad Layings, 90. Broadway, The (Newbury), 88. Bronze Age, The, 111, 113. implements, 109, 110. Beookb, J. W., 97. Beown, B. (U.S.A.), 8. Beown, J. Allen, 105. Bryozoa (undetermined), 23, 26, 30. Buccinum, 65. BucKXAND, Dean, 111, 113, 126. Bucklebury Commons, 66, 72, 86, 93. plateau, 86, 93. stage, 93. BUCKMAN, S. S., 134. Building materials, 120, 121. Bull's Lane (Newbury), 99. Bungum Barn (near Inkpen), 11, 79, 116. Burghclere, 18, 39, 89, 128, 130. Common, 90, 93-95. Burghfield Common, 89. Buried channels under river gravel, 98, 101. Burley Wood, 73, 90. Burridge Heath, 36. " Burying ground " (Lambourn Woodlands), 57. Bury's Bank (Greenham Common), 88, 89. Bussook Camp (near Winterbourne), 24, 72, 93. Bythinia leachii, 126, 127. — tentaculata, 126, 127. Caddis-cases, 111. Calamite, impression of, in sandstone, 86. 138 INDEX. Calcareous concretions in London Clay, 65. in Reading Beds, 53, 62. in Upper Greensand, 5-8. Calcareous sandstones (Cretaceous), 5-8, 119. (Eocene), 53. Calcite, 5, 35, 53. Calcium sulphate in peat-ashes, 109. Calyptrosa, 68. Calias, Mbssbs, 124. Canal, the Kennet and Avon, 3, 36, 101, 121. Candona lucens, 112. ■ — reptans, 112. Canis familiaris, 110. lupus, 109, 110. vulpes, 112. Gapra hircus, 109, 110, 112. Capreolua caprea, 109-111 Carboniferous sandstone, 86. Cardiaster cretaceus, 15. ■ fossarius-zone, see Zone. Cardium, 65, 66, 68. laytoni, 50. Garterdla cylindrica, 9. Carychium minimum, 126. Castle Copse (nr. Bedwyn), 36, 38, 62. — Hill (near Bedwyn), 62, 68. Castor europcEus, 109, 110. Catmore, 23, 83. Cave deposit (Irish), 126. Gerithium, 19. Gervus dama, 110. daphus, 102, 109-113. megaceros, 110. Chaddleworth, 54, 83. Chalcedony in chalk residues, 130, 131. Chalk, 2-5, 8, 10-46, 48-58, 60-63, 66, 67, 69, 70, 74, 76-80, 81-83, 86, 89, 96-98, 100, 102, 103, 105, 113, 115- 121. , economic uses of, 120, 121. , escarpments of, see Escarp- ments. , inlier of, 35, 58. , insolublereBiducsof,128-131. , Lower, 4, 8, 10-15, 79, 80, 116. , microscopic characters of, 33-35, 37, 38, 129-131. , Middle, 4, 10, 13-17, 78, 80, 123. , phosphatic, see Phosphatic. . prices of, at Kintbury, 121. , reconstructed, 38, 39, 47. Chalk, siliceous, 12, 13. , thickness of the, 10. , underground working for, 27, 116, 121. , Upper, 4, 10-15, 17-46, 74, 76, 77, 80, 122-125, 128-131. . zones of the, see Zone. — Downs, see Berkshire, Marl- boro', Sydmonton HiUs. Marl, 12, 13. Rook, 10, 11, 14, 16-22, 120, 123 ; (Reussianum-zono) fauna, 10, 18, 19. Chalk-rubble, 96, 97, 103, 105, 106, 115. fans of Thames Valley, 106. Chalk-wells, 52, 55, 56, 116. Chalking or marling land, 115, 116. Chamberhouse Farm (nr. Thatcham), 101, 102. Char a, 111. Cheap Street (Newbury), 110. Chelonia, 50. Chenendopora, 8. Chert, 5-9. " Chert" in Plateau Gravel, 89. Chieveley, 54, 118. Chiltern HiUs, 15. Chilton Foliat, 27, 60, 97. Chimney-pots, 120. Chisbury Camp (or " Barrow"), 38, 39, 63, 68, 69, 75, 84, 91, 93. Hill, 36, 37. Lane Farm, 36. Manor Farm, 91. Chloritic Marl, 5, 8, 10, 11, 13. Cidaris clavigera, 23, 25, 26, 28, 35. hirudo, 12, 14, 23-25, 27, 35. perornata, 23, 25, 26, 40. sceptrifera, 23, 25, 26, 30, 33. serrifera, 16. Cimoliosaurus, see Plesiosaurus. City, The (Lambourn), 20. Clapton (nr. Wiokham), 26. Glausa francqana, 23, 27. Clay HiU (Shaw), 49, 65. Clay-galls, 48, 52. Clay-ironstone, 59, 65. Clay-with-Flints, 4, 81-84, 91, 97, 98, 103-105, 115, 119, 120, 122; constituents of, 81-84. Climatic changes, 106, 113. Clinopora lineata, 23. Cloth Hall Museum (Newbiiry), 11, 111. Coal, 4. Cobham Frith (nr. Froxfield), 91. CocMicopa lubrica, 126, 127. INDEX. 139 CODBINGTON, T., 8, 9, 11, 113, 117, 133. Cold Ash, 47, 72, 86, 93. Common, 51, 66, 72, 86, 92. ■ plateau, 86, 92, 93. • stage, 92, 93. Cold Harboiir (nr. Hungerford), 35. COLLETT, Dk. J., 109, 132. CoUingbourne (or Bourne River), 79. Colne, Alluvium of the River, 127. Combes, growth of, 79, 80. Compton, 2, 19, 21, 103. Compton, West, see West Compton. COMYNS, F., 136. " Conglomerate-stones," 72. Consequent streams, 78. Contortions in stony clay (Plateau Gravel), 90, 92. Contours of base of Reading Beds, 44, 77. Convlus albogalerus, 23, 26, 27, 30. Coombe gibbet, 2. Coombe Rock of Sussex, 106. Cook's Farm (Newbury), 102. Cope Hall, 58. Coppington Down, 26. Coprolites in Chalk, 24, 33. Copyhold Farm (near Ham), 116. (near Hermitage), 51. Corax falcatus, 33, 34. fristodontus, 33, 34. Coscinopora, 23, 31. quincuncialis, 26, 33, 40. Courage, see Curridge. Ccelosmilia granulata, 40. laxa, 40. Crania parisiensis, 35. " Craven Arms " Inn (Hampstead Marshall), 58, 67. " Creep " of drift, 86. Cretaceous, Upper, 4-42, 115. Crick, G. C, 41. Crinoid-ossicles in Chalk, 24, 26. in Reading Beds, 50. Crisina cenomana, 25. unipora, 27. Cristellaria, phosphate casts of, 33. , glauconite casts of, 130. Crockham Heath, 67. Crofton, 8, 12, 13, 37, 78, 79, 113. Engme-House, 20, 27. Cromlechs, sarsen, 83, 121. Crookham Common, 73, 88, 89. House, 89. " Crown and Garter " Inn (near Inkpen), 91. Cultivation terraces, 17, 120. Cttnnington, W. and W. A., 135. Curridge, 51, 52, 118. Common, 51, 66. Cyclostoma elegans, 114. Oyphosoma, 30. — koenigi, 23. Gyprina, 12. Cypris setigera, 112. Cythere (Cyiheridea) muelleri, 50. Cythereis ornatissima, 33. Cytherella muensteri, 33. ovata, 25, 33. mlliamsoniana, 33. Davy, Sib H., 109. Dawley (Middlesex), 105. Deanwood, (near Speen), 118. Deer, Fallow, see Cervus dama. , Red, 109-113. Deflection of streams, 79. Deformation of Eocene platform, 44, 77. Denford, 97. Farm, 26. House, 97. Devizes Museum, sponges in, 9. Didcot and Newbury Railway, 23. 49, 51, 99. Diestian Sea, The, 77. Dimyodon nilssoni, 27, 32, 33, 40. Diseoidea dixoni, 14. suhuculus, 6, 9. Disturbances, early- or pre-Eocene, 25, 34, 42, 45, 46, 77. . local, in Eocene Beds, 54, 67, 60, 62. , post-Bagshot, 76-78. Ditrupa, 65, 66. Dixon, S. B., 106, 134. Dods Down, 12, 15, 37. Brick Works, 68, 76. railway-cutting, 12-15, 20, 21, 27, 114. Dog, The, see Oanis familiaris. " Doggers," 5-8. Dome structure, 5, 77. Donnington, 23, 54. Kihi, 54, 66. • Square, 97, 98, 100, 103. " Donnington Gravel," 98. Doryderma henetti, 8, 9. Drainage development in Vale of Ham, 79, 80. features, 2-4, 78-80. Drain-pipes, 120. Drift, 76, 81-114. , movements in, 82, 86, 87, 92, 95. Drosera intermedia, 119. rotundifolia, 119. Duncroft Farm, Burghclere, 128, 130. Durley, 3, 17, 36, 45. 140 INDEX. Earlstone Common, 89, 90. Earth-movements, see Disturbances. East Fields (Newbury), 99. East Garston, 19. East Shefford, 25. East Woodhay Rectory, 118. Eastley Farm (near Leckhampstead), 117. Echinocorys scutatus, 23, 30, 31, 32, 40, 61. depressed and stunted forms, 33, 34, 40. , gibbous forms, 20, 40, 41. ovate forms, 23-27, 30, 33, 34, 40, 41. pyramidate forms, 26, 30, 33-36, 40, 41. var. striatiis, 30. Economic geology, 115-121. Egypt (near Leckhampstead,) 117. Eloot, 30, 96. Green, 57. Lower Farm, 26. ElepJias primigenius in Alluvium, 108, 113. in Valley Gravel, 98, 99. " Elevation " valleys, 77. Elm Avenue (Lambourn), 103. Enborne, 57, 58, 67, 73, 89, 93. ■ House, 99. River, The, 3, 79, 89, 104. Road (Newbury), 99. Street, 66, 73. Valley, The, 73, 89, 92, 93. English Channel, 46. Entalophora raripora, 27. virgula, 27. Eocene Beds, 3, 4, 17, 29, 41, 43-77, 81-83, 94, 96, 97, 115, 118, 120. platform, 39, 44, 48, 77. — , character of, 48. . deformation of, 44, 77. Eoliths, 87. Equus asinus, 109, 110. ■ caballus, 99, 109-112. Escarpments, Chalk, 2, 11, 13, 63, 80. Eschara, 23. acia, 23. dana'e, 37. — lamarchi, 27, 30, 40. Exogyra sigmoidea, 25. Eyles' tile-yard (Newbury), 66. Fallow Deer, see Germis dama. Farnborough Copse, 64. Farn Coombe (near Lambourn), 16. Farncoombe Down, 83. Faults, 26, 74. Fire-clay in Reading Beds, 49. Fish remains, 26, 32, 33, 40, 66. Fisher's Green (near Curridge), 51. Flbtt, De., J. S., 86. Flexures, early Eocene or pre-Eocenc, 25, 34, 42, 45, 46, 77. , Miocene, 76-78; in France, 76, 77. Flint Implements, see Eoliths, Neoliths, Paleeoliths. Flint-meal, 24, 27. Flints, carious, 24, 27, 28. . economic uses of, 119-121. , fossils in, 31. , globular, hollow, 27. , green-coated, 48, 60, 62, 56, 97, 98, 124. , price of, 119. : — , "rotten," 54. , tabular, 14, 16, 20, 22, 24- ~ 29, 35, 40, 122, 123. , violet, 26-28. Flood-loams, Modem, 113. Flood-plains, 78, 79, 92, 113. Floods, 104, 113. Flow-structure in drifts, 90, 92. Fognam Barn (near Lambourn), Ki, 121. Folds, see Flexures. Folly Farm (near Denford), 97. (Great Bedwyn), 36, 62. Foraminifera, glauconite casts of, 34, 129-131. — phosphate oasts of, 24, 33. Fords, 102, 110. Formations, list of, 4. Fossil wood, 48, 52, 83, 108. Four Ehns (near Oare), 54. Fox, see Canis vulpes. Fox Hill (near Inkpen), 91. Foxbury Wood (near Bedwyn), 36, 38. France, North-western, flexures in, 76. Freewarren Bridge, 12. Fresh-water marl, see Shell-marl. Frog, bone of, 127. Froxfield, 3, 27, 104. Valley, The 71, 104. Furze Hill (near Chilton Foliat), 27. (near Oare), 23, (near Stockoross, 87. Fusiis, 66, 68. Oalerites, see Conulus. " GaUs," 48, 62. Gaps in Chalk ridge, 3, 79, 80. Gault, 4, 5, 61. Gidley Farm (near Oare), 52. INDEX. in Glacial Period, 94. Glauoonite, 6, 8, 26, 34, 129-131. Glaze on ohalk (phosphatic), 24, 32. on flints, 105. Globigerina, 24, 34, 37, 129, 130. , glauoonite casts of, 34, 129, 130. , phosphate casts of, 24, 33.* Olobulina, 50. Goat, The, 109, 110, 112. Gradation limit, 94. Grafton, 7, 9. Station, 5. Graham's (Newbury), 58. Grange, The, (Curridge), 51. Gravel flats or plateaux, 85-94. , inclinations of, 86-91. " islands," 101, 102. ■ terraces, 96-101, 103, 104, 106. , undergroundworkingsin, 90. Gravels, see Black, Bottom, Plateau, River, Slope, Valley. Great Bedwyn, 1, 36, 38, 47, 61-65, 68, 78, 93, 120, 128, 129. Great Pen Wood, 90. Great Western Railway, 8, 11, 20, 57, 98, 99, 113. " Green loam " of Alluvium, 108, 109, 113. Green Sands group (Selbomian), 5, 8, 9. Green-coated nodules, 14, 18-21, 123. flints, 48, 50, 52, 56, 97, 98, 124. Greenham Common, 3, 73, 88, 89, 98. Lodge wen, 58, 66, 73, 118, 125. plateau, 88, 89, 93. Greenham or Silchester Stage, 93, 94, 96. " Greenish-yellow clay " of AUuvium, 108, 113. Greensand, Lower, 4. , Upper, 4-9, 11, 61, 79, 86, 115, 116, 119. Greenway Cottages (near Shefford), 117. Greywethers or Sarsens, see Sarsens. Grimsbury Camp, 65, 72. Ground water-level, 117, 118. Gkovbe, J. W., 133. Gully, The (Snelsmore), 119. Halfway, 98, 101, 102, 110, 126. gravel-terrace, 99-101. " Halfway " Inn, 98. HaUirhoa costata, 8, 9. Ham, 4, 8, 61, 116. Church, 8. Ham HiU, 2, 15, 21. Marsh (near Newbury), 107, 111, 113. , Vale of, see Vale. Hamites simplex, 6, 9. Hampshire Basin, 46. Hampstead Lodge, 89. MarshaU, 35, 58, 89. ■ Park, 89. Hamspray House (near Inkpen), 12. Hangman's Stone (near Leckhamp- stead), 121. Hangman's Stone Lane, 25. Hard beds in Act. quadraius -zone, 34, 40, 41. in Marsupites-zone, 34. in M. cor-anguinwm- zone, 22-27. Harding Farm (near Great Bedwyn), 36, 79. Harpwood (Lambourn Woodlands), 57. Harrod Farm (near Stockcross), 66. Hastings, The " tesselated-bed " at, 53. Haycroft Copse (near Wickham), 57. Hazelby House (near North End), 90. Headley Common and Heath, 89, 94, 104. Hdicdla itala, 126. Helicigona arhustorum, 126. Helicodiadema [Pseudodiadema] fra- gile, 23, 25, 26, 33. Helix aspersa, 126. nemoralis, 126, 127. Hell Comer (near Inkpen), 90. Hemiaster minimus, 16. Hemsted, S., 113. Henley (Oxon), Course of Kennet- Thames near, 78. Henley Farm (near Shefford), 103, 117. Henwiok, 51, 65. Farm, 119. . Little, 86. Henwick plateau, 93, 94. Henswood (near Axford), 84. Hermitage, 47, 51, 52. Herribs, R. S., 72, 134. Hertford, Countess of, 132. Heteroceras, 19* Hidden Farm, 57. Hill, W., 132. HiU Bam (near Wilton), 37. — — Green (near Leckhampstead), 83. Hilldrop (near Ramsbury), 97. Hill's Farm (Lambourn Woodlands), 57, 83. 142 INDEX. Highclere, 70. High Wood (near Shaw), 51, 66. Historic Age, 110, 113. Hoar Hill, see Hour HiU. Hoe Benham, 56. Holaster, 16. placenta, 14, 18, 20, 22. planus, 20. plamis-zone, see Zone. ■ subglobosiis -zone, see Zone. HoUington (near East Woodhay), 71. Holly Wood (near Thatoham), 72. Holocene Mollusca of Kennet Valley, 112, 126, 127. Holocene or Recent Period, 4, 76, 113. Holt, The, (near Shaw), 51, 54. Homo, 110. Hopgrass Farm (near Hungerford), 27. Kihi, 27, 60. Horace HiU, 90. Hornblende in Chalk, 129, 131. Horse, The, 99, 109-112. Hour (Hoar) Hill, 31, 55, 87. Hull, Peof. B., 132. Human remains in Alluvium, 110, 111. Hungerford, 1-3, 27, 43, 60, 67, 78, 84, 91, 94, 96, 97,' 110, 117. — Down, 97. , Little, see Little H. Newtown, 117. Park, 60, 79. Station cutting, 27. Hygromia granulafa, 126. hispida, 126, 127. rufescens, 126. Hyde End (near Brimpton), 104. Idmonea alipes, 25. Ilmenite in Chalk, 129-131. Implements, see Bronze, Eoliths, Iron, Neoliths, Palfeoliths. Inglewood House (near Kintbury), 35. Inkpen, 36, 37, 57, 59, 67, 94, 104, 116, 118, 120, 124. Beacon, 2. Church, 3, 12, 22, 74. Common, 47, 73, 74, 90-92, 94. Hill, 2. Inkpen or Sydmonton Hills, 1-3, 45, 46, 57, 118. Inlier of Chalk, 35, 58. Inliers of Upper Greensand, 4, 5, 61. Inoceramus; 11, 14, 19, 20-22, 24, 26, 28, 35-38, 40, 123. cvvieri, 14, 20-23, 25, 26, 30, 32, 33, 40. Inoceramus involutris, 22. latus, 12. ndes, 14, 16, 20, 21. lamarcki, 22. Ireland, Cave deposit in, 126. Iremonger's Cottages, 31. Irish Hill (near Kintbury), 35, 58, 89. Iron Age, The, 113. Iron implements, 109, 110, 112, 113. Iron-stone and iron-sandstone, 52, 53, 55, 61, 68, 81, 83, 85, 87, 103, 104, 121. , pebbly, 61. Irving, De. A., 69, 70, 134. " Islands " of gravel in Alluvium, 101, 102. Island Villa (near Donnington), 54. Isle of Purbeck, Bagshot Beds in, 73. Iver (Middlesex), Palaeoliths of, 105. Jaminia muscorum, 126. Jerea, 8. Jones, Prof. T. Rupert, 30, 53, 66, 108, 109, 111, 112, 126, 133- 134. Joyce, Mr., 122. JuDD, Prof. J. W., 134. Jukes-Browjte, a. J., 5, 9, 11, 21, 30, 37-39, 46, 69, 82, 132, 134, 135. Jurassic rocks, 4. Kennard, a. S., 87, 111, 112, 126, 134. Kennet, The, 2, 3, 25, 35, 43, 47, 49, 76-79, 81, 92-94, 97-102, 106-113, 118, 119. and Avon Canal, 3, 36, 101, 121. , course of the, 3, 78. ■ Vale of the, see Vale. Valley, 2, 3, 83, 86, 88, 89, 91, 96-103, 107, 109, 110, 113, 116, 118. Alluvium, 35, 93, 97, 101, 107-113, 126, 127. Gravel, 96-103, 106. Kingena lima, 23, 25, 26, 30, 31, 33, 35, 40. Kingsclere, Vale of, see Vale. Kingsolere-Pewsey anticline, 4, 5, 46, 68-70, 74, 76, 77, 79, 80, 118. , age of, 46, 69, 70, 76-78. King's Heath, 26, 83. Kingwood House (near Lambourn), 21, 118, 122. INDEX. 143 Kintbury, 1, 17, 26, 29, 34, 35, 39, 42-44, 46, 58, 59, 67, 75, 97, 107, 117, 121, 128, 129. Cihurch, 35, 39, 59. Crossways, 91. Holt Parm, 35. Mm, 35, 121. Smithy, 39, 42. KirbyHouse,37,74, 124. , weUs at, 59, 67, 71, 74, 118, 124. Kitohels Farm (near Donnington), 54. KiTCHiN, Dr. F. L., 30. Knighton, 26. Knowle Parm, implementiferous gra- vel at, 91, 104-106. Lacustrine conditions in Kennet Valley, 102, 112, 113, 127. Lagena, 130. Lambourn, 1, 2, 11, 16, 18, 19, 21, 103, 117-120, 122. — Churoh-yard, 120. River, The, 1, 2, 78, 97, 100, 107, 117. , Upper, see Upper Lam- bourn. Lambourn Valley, The, 13, 16, 25, 83, 88, 103. — Railway, The, 56, 97, 103. Lambourn Woodlands, 1, 26, 83. Lam/na, 32, 50. ap-pandioulata, 25, 33. Lane End (Bucks), 39. Land MoUusca, Recent, 111, 113, 114. Langley Park (near Beedon Hill), 53. , calcareous sandstone at, 53. Langley Wood, 54. Layland's Green (near Kintbury), 39, 41, 128, 129. Lea River, Alluvium of the, 127. Leaf-bods in Reading Series, 48-51, 56. ■ — in Bagshot Beds, 71, 73. Leckhampstead, 2, 23, 83, 121, 128, 129. Leigh Hill (Savernake), 63, 69, 75. Lenham (Kent), Pliocene deposits near, 78. Lepralia sulcata, 40. Leucoxene in Chalk, 130, 131. Leverton, 97. Lignite, 48, 50. Lilly (near Catmore), 103. Lima, 37. diipiniana (= semixiilcnti), 6, 9. Lima hoperi, 27, 33. (= glohosa), 9. Lime, manufacture of, 121. "Lime-wash" or "Race," 48, 62. Limestone, 18, 37, 65. LimncBa auricularia, 126. pereger, 126, 127. palitsiris, 126, 127. stagnalis, 126. truncatula, 126. Limonite in Chalk, 129, 131. Little Bedwyn, 27, 36, 37. Little Common (near Inkpen), 59. Little Frith (near Froxfield), 91. Little Hungerford (near Hermitage), 66. Littlecote Park Farm, 27. Loddon, River, 93. Lodge, The, (Snelsmore Common), 72. London Basin sjfncline, 17, 43-47, 67, 69, 76-78. , minor flexures in, 77. London Clay, 4, 47, 49, 51, 52, 54- 56, 58-64, 65-75, 104, 115, 119, 120, 124, 125. , thinning-out of, 63, 65, 66, 68-70, 76. London Ride (near Savernake), 36. Long Lane (near Hermitage), 52. Long Walk (Stype Copse), 36. Lower Chalk, see Chalk. Lower Farm (near Winterbourne), 32, 128, 129. Lower Greensand, 4. " Lower marl " of Alluvium, 109, 112, 113. Lutra vulgaris, 110. Lyckweed Farm (near King's Heath), 57. Lydekkeb, R., 135. Lye Farm, 26, 104. Lysons, D. and S., 132. Magas pumilus, supposed occurrence of, 30. "Malm" (of Alluvium), 109, 111. Malmstone (Selbomian), 5, 8. Jlammalian remains in gravels, 88, 96, 98-100, 102, 108-113. in alluvium, 109-113. Mammoth, The, 98, 99, 108, 113. Manganese oxide, dendrites of, 32. Manor Farm (Bagnor), 101. (Cliisbury), 91. " Marl Rock," 12. Marl seams in the Upper Chalk, 17, 24, 25. Marl, Shell, see Shell-marl. M4 INDEX. Marlborough district, 17. Downs, 76. Marls, Belemnite, see Belemnite Marls. Marsh Benham, 98. Marsupiies testudinarius, 31-39, 45. Marsupites-hund, 29-31-39, 43-46. zone, see Zone. Marten, The, see Mustela martes. Masked springs, 119. Mavoe, W., 132. Melbourn Rock, 10-15, 121. "feature," 15. Meles taxus, 110, 113. Membranipora, 25, 40. — elUptica, 27. Micraster cor-anguinwm., 23, 26, 26, 30-33, 35, 40. cor-anguinum var. latior, 27. • cor-testudinarium, 18, 20, 21. precursor, 18, 20, 21. . see also under Zone. Micropora hippocrepis, 27. Middle C!halk, see Chalk. Middle Farm (near Lambourn), 117. Midland and South Western Junction Railway, 5, 8, 13, 116. Miocene Period, 76, 77. folding, 76-78. Modiola, 65. MoNCKTON, H. W., 72, 87, 134, 135. Money, Walter, 100, 108, 110, 112, 134. Monocline of Berks Downs, 4, 76. Movements in drift, 82, 86, 87, 92, 95. Mud-flows, 95. Museum, British (Natural History), 9. . Cloth Hall, (Newbury), 11, 111. , Oxford, 111. of Practical Geology, 12, 31, 53. Mustela martes, 110. " Nag's Head " Inn (Speen), 55. Nalder Hill, 30. Natica, 66. [Naticina) vulgaris, 19. Nautilus, 65, 67, 68. elegans, 9. • simplex (? expansus), 9. Neolithic Age, 113, 126. Neoliths in Kennet Alluvium, 102, 109, 110. near Baydon, 114. Neritina, 67. I, 126. Newbury, 1-3, 29, 49, 52, 55, 57, 58, 65, 66, 72, 78, 88, 89, 92, 93, 98, 99, 100, 107-118, 119, 125-129. Newbury Cemetery well, 99. Church, 101. (ClothHaU)Museum, 11, 111. Police Station, 102. Pumpiag Station, 102. sewer-trenches, 107. Station (G.W.R.), 99. Wash, 67. • Workhouse well, 73. Newbury and Winchester Railway, 99. New Town (Thatcham), 100. Newtown (near Bedwyn), 60, 62, 68, 104. Common (near Newbury), 73, 86, 89, 90, 93, 94. — Hungerford, see Hungerford Newtown. Newton, E. T., 99, 100, 110. Nicnocks (near Wickham), 26. Noah's Ark (Greenham Common), 88. Nodilea durobrivensis, 27. Nodosaria, 37. zippei, 24, 30. Noke Wood (near Proxfield), 91. North Downs, Pliocene deposits on the, 78. North End, 90. North Earm (near Lambourn), 16. North Field Barn (near Aldboume), 13, 16. North Heath, 55, 83. North Sea Basin, Pliocene deposits on borders of the, 78. North Standen Farm (near Hunger- ford), 61. Northbrook Street (Newbury), 108, 109. Northcroft (Newbury), 116, 119. Lane, 112. Nucula, 19, 50, 65. Oare, 2, 23, 24, 45, 52, 53, 65, 66. Common, 66, 72, 73. Oareborough Hill, 53, 66. Offaster pillula, 31-34, 40, 41. " Old Harrow " Inn (near Newbury), 73. Old Hayward Bottom, 26, 104. Oldhaven Beds, 47. Oligocene Period, 76. Orbitolina concava, 9. Oreaster, see Pentaceros. Osier plantations, 121. Ossory, Bishop of, 109. Ostrea, 16, 21, 24, 32, 35, 67. bellovacina, 50, 59, 61, 67. edulina, 50, 58. hippopodium, 25, 33. INDEX. 145 Ostrea lateralis var. striata, 25, 40. Pentagonaster megaloplax, 30, 35. normaniana, 33. Pentico Tarm (near Eamsbiiry), 83. vesicularis, 16, 23, 26, 30, 33, Pewsey, 105. 35, 40. anticline, TJie, 4, 5, 46, 68-70, wegmanniana, 26, 33. 74,76,77,79,80, 118. Otodus, 12. — • , Vale of, see Vale. Otter, see Lutra vulgaris. Phareirospongia strahani, 30. Outliers of Chalk, 45, 46. Pheasant's Hill (near Hermitage), 66. of Reading Beds, 45, 47, 49, Phillips, Mk., (Kintbnry), 121. 51, 53-55, 57, 58, 60, 62, 63. Phosphatic chalk of Boxford, 24, 25, of London Clay, 66-68. 31, 34. of Bagshot Beds, 71-75. of Prance, 34. Overlap of Bagshot Beds, 71. of Lewes, 34. Overstep, The Eocene, 43-46. of Taplow, 34. Ovis, 99, 110, 112, 113. of Winterbonrne, 31- OwEN, Sir R., 109, 110, 133. 34, 35, 128, 129, 131. Ox, The, 110-113. Phosphatic concretions, 32-34. Oxford University Museum, 111. nodules, 6, 11, 18, 32-34. Oxyrhina mantdli, 32, 33. Phosphatized Poraminifera, 24, 33- " Oyster-bed " of Reading Beds, 29, Pholas constricta, 9. 48, 60, 52, 55, 58, 59, 61, 67, 124. Physa fontanus, 126. fontinalis, 126. Pachydiscus peramqilus, 19, 21. • hypnorum, 126. Pachypoterion rdbustum, 8, 9. Physiographic belts, 1-4. Palseoliths, 96-98, 100-106, 108, 113. Pickering, J., 126. Palmer, Dr. Silas, 107, 108, 133. PickedCross(near Aldboume), 117. Palmer, Mohtague, 108. Pig, The, 109, 110, 112, 113. Palmer, Mr. (Shaw Kiln), 50. Pile Hill (near Newbury), 88. Pang, The River, 1, 3, 92, 103, 117, Pile-dwellings, 110. 118. Pipe-clay, 58, 68, 71, 73, 75, 124. Panopcea, 65. " Pipe-outliers," 45. Paracypris siliqtia, 33. " Pipes " in chalk. 24, 48, 51, 53, 54, Parasmilia, 19. 60, 62, 82, centralis, 26, 30, 33. Pisidium amnicum, 126, 127. Peasemore, 2, 23. fontinale, 126. Peat, 101, 102, 107-113. milium, 126. Peat, constituents of, 109. — ■ — — pusillvm, 126. , implements, etc., in, 109, 110. Planation of the Chalk, 45, 46, , mammalian remains in, 109, Planorbis albus, 126, 127. 110. complanatus, 126, 127. ashes, 109, 121. contortus, 126, 127. — , calcium sulphate in, corneus, 126. 109. crista, 126, 127. -bogs, 110, 111. gla:ber, 126 Pebble-beds, Eocene, 61, 68, 71, 72, fontanus, 126 75, 87, 91, 119, 124, 125. spirorhis, 126. Pebble HiU (near Kintbury), 39, 58, stroemii, distribution of, 127. 69, 67, 75, 91. vortex, 126. Pebbles associated with Plesiosaurvs, Plants, see Eossil wood. Leaf-beds, 8. Lignite, Peat. Pecten, 11, 37, 40. Plateau Gravel, 4, 81, 83-97, 104, asper, 5, 6, 9. 106, 115, 121, 124. zone, see Zone. , ages of, 94, 95. cretosus, 23, 25, 26, 33, 36. . composition of, 85. mantellianus, 31. , implements in, 87, orbicularis, 6, 8, 9, 12. , modes of formation (Neithea) 5-costatus, 6, 9. of, 91, 92, 95. Peciunculus, 66, 66. , stages of, 92-94. Pentaceros bulbiferus, 35. Pleistocene deposits, 4, 81-106, 113. Pentacrinus, 23, 25. — Period, 4, 76, 81, 94, 106, 113. 9114. L 146 INDEX. Plesiosaurus (Oimoliosaurus), 8, 9. stones associated witli, 8. Pleurotoma, 66, 68. Pleurotomaria (Leptomaria) perapec- tiva, 19. Plicatula pectinoides, 9. sigillina, see Di my o don nilssoni. PUnthosella, 23. squamosa, 25, 26. Pliocene Period, 4, 76-78, 94. disturbances, 78. Plocoscyphia, 16, 26. convoluta, 20, 21 POLLAED, Db. W., 128. 129. PoUicipes glaber, 36. Polypothecia, 8. Pond- weed. 111. Polesdown, 60, 67, 75. Porosphcera glohularis, 21, 23-25, 30, 33, 35, 40. 50. nuciformis, 40. patdliformis, 25-27, 33, 35. pileolus, 26, 35, 40. (branching form), 26. Pot-holes, 59. Potteries, 73, 120. Prbstwich, Sib J., 50, 52, 56, 61, 83, 133, 134. Prior's Court (near Beedon), 54. Proboscina angustata, 25. Prosperous Farm (near Shalbourne), 37. Pseudodiadema, see Helicodiadema. Purbeok, Bagshot beds of, 73. Pudding-stone, 61. PtTRDOB, Me. (of Islington), 109. Pyramidula rotundata, 126, 127. Pyrites, 19, 23 65, 66. Quartz in Chalk, 34, 129-131. yo Rocks ol Bngjand. 10s. By H. B. Woodward. Vol. V. The Middle and Upper Oolitic Rooks of England. 7s. ed. By H. B. Woodward. BRITISH ORGANIC REMAINS. DECADES I. to XIII., with 10 Plates each. Price is. 6d. each 4to ; 2s. ed. each 8vo. MONOGRAPH I. On the Genus PTERYGOTUS. By T. H. Hdxley and J. W. SALTER. 7«. 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