limestones of varied character. There are no igneous rocks amongst them — 

 no Basalt or Greenstone ; nor are there any fragments of the higher rocks, 

 the Conglomerate or the Mountain Limestone which formerly overlaid the Old 

 Eed Sandstone ; they are all, so to speak, pieces from the rocks of the district, 

 and they are all more or less waterworn. 



The sloiie at the hiU on which they are found has, you observe, a 

 northern aspect, precisely similar to the Common examined last year at 

 Llandrindod, and singularly enough higher up in this field, there lies upon the 

 surface, a large block of limestone which involuntarily suggested the idea of a 

 boulder, but the President said, "no !" It was a nonfossiliferous rock so far as 

 we examined it, and there was nothing about it, but its situation, to show that 

 it did not belong to the immediate district. So the question of boulders ice- 

 transported is not to be entertained here as it was there, although the current 

 here, as there, has been from the north. 



These stones, in short, are a drift of rocks worn almost to pebbles from 

 the rolling action of water, and it is a drift of a peculiarly interesting character, 

 for it tells its own tale. No one acquainted with the Silurian rocks in this 

 district can look at this fossil, formed as it is by a conglomeration of the shells 

 of Pentameriis Knightii, without saying at once that it comes either from the 

 limestone rocks at Aymestry or from those at View Edge beyond Ludlow, where 

 the Aymestry Limestone is also almost entirely composed of this fossil ; for 

 though the Aymestry Limestone was to be found at Woolhope and elsewhere, he 

 did not think it possible to find this shell in such masses anywhere nearer than 

 those two places, and since Aymestry is much the nearest of the two, we may 

 consider that to be their source. The other fossil limestones are Upper Ludlow, 

 and contain Orthis elegantida, a Strophomena, and some other shells too much 

 iniured to name, and several small fragments of an Orthoceras, which were 

 beaten out just now. Now Aymestry lies about nine miles, as the crow flies, 

 due North from the hUl on which we stand, and if we suppose that these stones 

 have been rolled down the valley now occupied by the Lug they would have 

 to travel about twelve miles perhaps to arrive on this spot. 



We come then to the conclusion that this drift of rocks, lying on the 

 North slope of this liill, has been deposited here by a strong current of water, 

 after the Silurian rocks were thrown up, and after the ground here had taken 

 its present form. 



The leading geologists for some time past, leaving the fixed rocks, have 

 been calling loudly upon us to examine the drifts and the gravel beds, and very 

 interesting they certainly are, but he could not help hoping that they would soon 

 come a little nearer still to the surface, and give us some information with 

 reference to the formation of the deep clay loam which so often occupies the 

 hills of Herefordshire. Here we are now standing on a tolerably higli hill, so 

 high, indeed, that Egdon Hill, which you see in the distance, apparently not 

 pauch above us, is supposed by the natives in these parts, to be the highest 



