On Abnormal Geological Deposits in the Bristol District

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Abstract
In making excavations at Redland, on the edge of Durdham Down, about 45 years ago, some conglomerates, associated with Carboniferous Limestone, were opened up, which contained the teeth and scattered and broken bones of reptilia, described by Messrs. Riley and Stuchbury in the ‘Proceedings of the Geological Society’ for 1836 under the names of Thecodontosaurus and Palæosaurus . As they were then the oldest known reptilia and of a high order, much interest has always attached to them. A few years since, in drainage-works at the same spot, this conglomerate was again crossed, and some other bones added to the series deposited in the Museum of the Bristol Philosophical Society. The collection has since been reviewed and described by Professor Huxley, F.R.S., and an account of the physical characters of the district given by Mr. Etheridge, F.R.S. Much uncertainty has prevailed as to the geological age of the Durdham-Down conglomerate. At first it was supposed to be Permian; but we have as yet no conclusive evidence of true Permian beds in the West of England. Mr. Etheridge has placed it on the horizon of the Dolomitic Conglomerate of the Keuper; whilst, owing to the discovery by myself of the same genera of reptilia, under somewhat similar physical conditions, in the Rhætic deposits of Holwell, and since then of true Rhætic remains on Clifton Down, I had referred them to the latter age—a point to be reviewed below. In my paper on the abnormal conditions presented in the Frome district I especially

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