280
J. F. BLAKE AND W. H. HTTDLESTON ON
Section of Oolites and Limestones at Todbere.
ft. in.
1. Loose, soft yellow oolite marl, and rubbly thin-bedded oolite
limestone, with numerous fossils. Natica, sp., Chemnitzia hed-
dingtonensis, Ostrea solitaria, Echinobrissus scutatus 3
2. Oolitic and shelly limestone, with soft marly partings, breaking
into thin layers, fossiliferous. Echinobrissus scutatus, Ammonites
plicatilis 7
3. Solid block of blue limestone, composed of comminuted shells, with
scattered oolitic grains. It is locally called '"rag-stone," and is
used for road-mending on account of its hardness ; but it is a
beautiful building-stone, and has been extracted as such. Qhe
fossils all obliterated 4
4. Rubbly clay parting of insignificant thickness here, but increasing
to 1 foot in a quarry a little to the we.st, where it is full of small
broken fossils.
5. Solid creamy fine-grained oolitic, limestone, false-bedded, very
hard, and blue in the unweathered portions, weathering light
yellow. Joints filled with calcite. The best is U6ed for build-
ing; the rest for lime. No distinguishable fossils 12
6. Not seen here, but reported to be hard blue marl with small
stones. Some of it, seen by the road-side, was very pisolitic, and
contained many oysters. Exogyra nana 17
The last of these beds makes clear our stratigraphical horizon ;
and in the absence of fossils, the lithology of bed No. 5 may prove
its identity with the false-bedded series of Sturminster. The higher
beds will be referred to again.
A similar section to the above is seen in enormous worked- out
quarries a little to the west, where the false-bedded series and the
superincumbent Haggy oolites and marls form a delightful picture
to the geological eye, which we have attempted to pourtray (fig. 3).
Fig. 3. — View of Section of False-bedded Oolites near Marnhutt.
Further to the west, again, the false-bedded limestones are still
more largely exposed in a quarry with a 14-feet face, now in work,
where they are extremely uniform and smooth, in beds from 1 foot
to 2 feet in thickness, without apparent dip in any direction. They
are beautiful building-stones, having a fine grain, and being free from
fossils, except a single bed near the top, which contains Trigonia
clavellata, Chemitzia Jieddingtonensis, Nerincea fasciata, Pleuromya