and most comprehensive report of the proceedings of the day, which 

 I ain sure you will thank me for giving you verbatim et literatim. 



" Leaving Gloucester at 10.24, the party, consisting of Lord 

 Ducie, J. H. Elwes, W. V. Guise, D. Bowly, and myself, and 

 J. K. Wilton as a visitor, receiving the welcome addition of the 

 Eev. W. S. Symonds, at the Grange, duly arrived at the Mitchel- 

 dean Road Station. 



" The ascent of the Lea Bailey was immediately commenced, 

 and the upturned edges of the Carboniferous Limestone, with its 

 shales speedily found exposed for examination in the most satis- 

 factory manner, and dipping from this position towards the centre 

 of the forest basin, 8.S.W., at an inclination of about 20 degrees. 

 The Limestone appeared to contain very few fossils, but the 

 shales yielded some slabs of a thin band of stone composed almost 

 entirely of the shells of Serpula and Spirorbis, and of Murchiso- 

 nia, and other small Gasteropods, interesting from the very great 

 abundance in which they occurred. From this point the same 

 stratigraphical line was followed to the neighbourhood of the 

 Hawthorns, where, in a deep road cutting, may be seen the finest 

 section of the transition beds between the Old Eed Sandstone 

 and the beds above mentioned, to be found in the district ; no 

 better could, in fact, be desired, from the high angle at which the 

 beds are exposed. Descending the hill from the cutting to Dry- 

 brook, where the innermost of the two seams of coal laid down on 

 the maps of the survey as below, or rather, at this point, outside 

 the Grits which form the basin bed of the true coal measures is 

 worked, the shale was found to be particularly rich in well pre- 

 served coal plants of the usual character. The vein of coal, locally 

 known as the Coleford High Delf, was described by the miners 

 as about five feet in thickness, of a quick burning quality, con- 

 taining much sulphur, and therefore principally used for lime- 

 burning and like purposes. 



" The shaft open before us, was stated, upon the same authority, 

 to be carried about seventeen hundred yards under the Grit which 

 forms the bulk of the hill above it. Some sixty to seventy feet 

 of this stone, which is familiar to all of us under its economic 

 aspect of ' Forest paving,' is well exposed in a quarry immediately 

 above the shaft, but the entire thickness of the stratum must be 

 very much more considerable. These slabs, throughout their 

 whole depth, as far as my observation extends, are more or less 

 rich in impressions of Cnlamites and other plants, although these 

 are probably more abundant in the lower than in the superior 

 layers. An old quarry man here took some kindly interest in us, 

 though manifestly sorely puzzled what to make of our pursuits 

 and designs. He appeared finally to conclude that we were railway 

 men, and was at some pains to point out to us the precise direc- 

 tion in which a certain projected ' stem road' was to go, and which 

 has progressed to the point of having been, in Forest phraseology^ 

 ' dialled and pegged off.' (I consider the quaint conversion of 



