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of the Old Red Sandstone, or substratum of the Carboniferous limestone, is 

 composed of pebbles of white quartz in a red matrix, varying on the Blorenge 

 from the size of a pea to that of an orange ; and much did we speculate on the 

 former history of these white quartz pebbles and that ancient red mud. At what 

 depth of the ancient planet was that sUex formed ? What ancient land or sea-girt 

 rock composed the coast from whence they came ? In which direction rolled the 

 current which deposited them in the red mud, now as hardened as themselves ? 

 We know that strange forms of fishes inhabited the seas whose waves thus rounded 

 them ; but what of the shores ? What land animals then lived ? What trees 

 grew upon the hills of that far-off period ? The little reptile of the Upper Old 

 Red (Telerpeton Elginensis) is all that answers to our question ; and one frag- 

 ment of coniferous wood is the only information we possess of a true tree 

 vegetation. 



There is another history, however, connected with a hill near the Blorenge, 

 the very mention of which bewilders the mind if unaccustomed to the wonders 

 of geology, and the revelation of which we can only compare to the m2u:vels of 

 astronomy, when we learn " that suns and systems are more numerous than the 

 sand upon the sea shore." The hUl is called Pen-cerig-calch, or the " HUl of the 

 limestone-peak." Well may the geologist stop and contemplate that hiU ; 

 there is a wondrous inscription chiselled upon its rocks. In ascending the 

 Blorenge we leave the Old Red Conglomerate, and find resting comformably upon 

 it the lowest member of the Carboniferous series, the Mountsdn Limestone ; 

 above this again rests the Millstone Grit, to which succeed the Coal Measure 

 shales and sandstones. Pen-cerig-calch is a separated mass of Old Red Sand- 

 stone, and on the top also is a detached mass of Mountain Limestone and Mill- 

 stone Grit, corresponding bed to bed and strata to strata with the opposite 

 deposits on the Blorenge. The Mountain Limestone and Millstone Grit of the 

 Blorenge, and indeed of the whole of the great Welsh coal basin, dip under deposits 

 which in South Wales have been ascertained by actual measurement to attain 

 the thickness of 12,000 feet ; and who shall say that the same beds have not 

 been formerly extended over the Pen-cerig-calch, above the Scyrrid, above the 

 spot where we now stand ? 



The Forest of Dean is but an island of the great Welsh Coal basin, preserved 

 from denudation. The Coal beds of the Clee HiUs are but the shores of vast 

 deposits which once extended far above those beds which now constitute the 

 surface of the most of Herefordshire ; and though the statement may seem 

 more Uke the tale of a fairy land, yet we know that we speak truth when we assert 

 that a vast area above and around us for thousands of feet together, now only 

 occupied by the thin air or the soaring lark, was in former periods of this planet's 

 existence filled by a mass of sediment, the product of unnumbered ages, accumu- 

 lated layer upon layer, the upper surfaces of which were occupied by vast forests 

 drained by great rivers, where the finest vegetation the sun ever shone upon 

 flourished for a time, and when its hour was passed was elaborated by the 

 Power of all-seeing Wisdom into the mineral, which of all others most adds to 

 the comfort, the greatness, and happiness of man. 



