MENDIP NOTES. 171 



Some years ago my attention was drawn to this pretty and 

 interesting spot by Mr. Henry E. Hippisley. I was puzzled 

 and dissatisfied. Last summer I went over all the ground 

 very carefully with Mr. Hippisley, and came to conclusions 

 which differ from those expressed in the Survey publication. 

 Mr. Hippisley also lent me some MS. notes made by his 

 father in 1854 and 1857, when certain trials for coal and iron 

 were being made in the neighbourhood. These notes con- 

 firmed the results of our re-examination of the locality. 



There are neither Lower Transition Beds nor Old Red 

 Sandstone near Lechmere Lake. The beds that have been 

 accounted such are probably shales and sandstones of the 

 Millstone Grit. The so-called Coal-measures are probably 

 carbonaceous seams in the Millstone Grrit, or that series 

 which, overlying the Mountain Limestone in the Mendip 

 area, answers to the Millstone Grit. If this be so, then, in 

 place of the puzzling patchwork of the Survey Map, we have 

 beds of Millstone Grit faulted against the Mountain Lime- 

 stone. 



The following are some of the facts and observations on 

 which my conclusions are based : — 



(1) The Limestone to the East of Lechmere Water, where, 

 according to the Survey Map, it adjoins the Lower Transi- 

 tion Beds, contains no encrinital stems and no Spirifers, as 

 it should do were it Lower Limestone ; but does contain 

 Lithostrotion, which points to Upper Limestone. 



(2) The adit or heading described" in the Survey Memoir, 

 as commenced in the Lower Limestone Shales, and continued 

 into the Old Red Sandstone, is twenty-seven yards long, 

 with, near its mouth, a drift of ten yards driven to the E. 

 It passes through grey micaceous shales with carbonaceous 

 specks, and reaches hard close sandstone resembling Millstone 

 Grit. About three-fourths of the way in there is red sand- 



