MENDIP NOTES. 175 



There is no satisfactory evidence of the parallel strips of 

 Lower Transition Beds and Old Red Sandstone. In the 

 illustrative section given in the paper from which I have 

 quoted, the Mountain Limestone at the mouth of Ebbor 

 G-orge is figured as Lower Limestone just above the Lower 

 Limestone Shales. If so, encrinital ossicles should be abun- 

 dant, and Spirifers should not be absent. On the other 

 hand, the rocks show Lithostrotion, and have the appearance 

 of Upper Limestone. I cannot accept this section as truly 

 or satisfactorily interpreting the facts. 



I do not propose, however, to do more in this note than 

 indicate the evidence which leads me to conclude that the 

 insertion of Old Red and Lower Limestone Shales is incor- 

 rect, and that Millstone Grit, with associated carbonaceous 

 shales, extend down the valley. 



Near the top of the valley, where the lane from Easton to 

 Priddy crosses it, near the gate, strong beds of Millstone Grit 

 are seen in situ dipping about 75° S.W. A hundred yards 

 or so south of this is the old pit mentioned in the Survey 

 Memoir, in the spoil-heap of which are not only Carbonaceous 

 Shales, but fragments of true coal. South and a little East of 

 this there is another old pit, a little below the footpath that 

 crosses the valley, with similar shales. An ash tree is now 

 growing in it. Fifty yards or so farther down the valley, 

 across the hedge, is yet another old working with similar 

 black shales in the tip. So far as I Qan judge from the one- 

 inch Survey Map we are here already in the supposed Lower 

 Limestone Shales. But the three old pits form a chain : the 

 shales which lie around them in the old spoil-heaps are in 

 the main similar, and there is no evidence of a great fault, 

 with a throw of some thousands of feet. Less than two hun- 

 dred yards farther down the valley are the workings of 1871, 

 said to be in Lower Limestone Shales, and penetrating to Old 



