Freestone Quarries of the Isle of Portland. 97 



when such as were able took their departure for the land. 

 At the same time, immense flocks of wild geese were seen 

 flying over, some of which manifested a disposition to alight 

 upon the rigging. 



Art. IX. Rough Notes made during a Visit to the Freestone 

 Quarries of the Isle of Portland , on Wednesday, August 25., 

 1835. By Wm. Perceval Hunter, Esq., Member of the 

 Geological Society of France, &c. &c. 



The Isle of Portland, and its vicinity, is one of the most 

 interesting spots to the geologist in the British dominions. 

 Setting aside the interest and curiosity every one must na- 

 turally feel respecting the quarries whence the materials for 

 raising our most ornamental public buildings (St. Paul's, 

 Westminster Abbey, Westminster Bridge, Somerset House, 

 &c.) have, for a period of upwards of two hundred years, been 

 derived, and its remarkable fossil forests of palm trees (prov- 

 ing to a certainty the great changes in climate, vegetation, and 

 physical structure our own island, in common with the rest 

 of the world, has, during the myriads of ages which fall under 

 the contemplation of the fossil naturalist, undergone), its vi- 

 cinity, for an area of fifty miles, possesses a variety and rich- 

 ness of geological wonders, such as few spaces of land of 

 similar extent in Europe can equal, most assuredly none sur- 

 pass. The Burning Cliff, only eight miles from Weymouth, 

 in the strata above which I found the same silicified trunks 

 of Cycadoidese, though, strange to say, not reposing on the 

 same " dirt-bed," as in Portland ; the layes of Kimmeridge 

 coal, so interesting from their geological position, though, I 

 believe, of very little value as to the quantity and quality of 

 their contents ; the Isle of Purbeck, whence all the flagstones 

 for the foot-pavements of London were, till within the last 

 few years, procured, and where the whole range of that re- 

 markable geological group, the Wealden Rocks, may, in 

 Dudley Cove, from the highest to the lowest member of the 

 series, at one glance be surveyed ; the beds of plastic clay 

 surrounding the eminence on which stand the romantic and 

 picturesque ivied ruins of Corfe Castle, whence, when I 

 rode by, cart-loads were being excavated and waggoned for 

 the potteries of Staffordshire ; the dunes of sand at the entrance 

 of Poole harbour, with the magnificent sections of precipitous 

 rocks of various strata, some perfectly horizontal, others as 

 perfectly vertical, some slightly inclined, and others again 

 broken into the wildest and most fantastic shapes, laid open 



