282 
Che Gale of Carminster, 
By the Rey. Canon Jacxson, F.S.A. 
(Read before the Society at Warminster, 22nd August, 1877.) 
k AM not going to describe every object presented to observa- 
$$) tion in the long Vale of Warminster: but leaving you to 
use your own eyes in the course of the excursions I propose now 
to treat the subject very generally; as to 
1. Tae Water. 
Tue Lanp. 
THe Lanevace. 
Tue Popruration. 
I. Tue Water. 
The key to a good deal that we see, but do not quite understand 
on the surface of a country, is found in a little knowledge of its 
geological arrangement. 
If you wish to know, by a very homely illustration, how this valley 
was formed, and what it consists of, here is one :— Take a large sheet 
of paste, colour: it blue, and lay it on the table: roll out a second, 
colour it green, and lay it on the blue: roll out a third, leaving it 
_white, and lay that at the top. Your lowest layer represents blue clay ; 
the middle one, green sand; the top one, chalk. Then take a scoop, 
dig out from the surface a long hollow, ending on the level of the 
table. Your scoop cuts through the chalk, the green sand, and the 
blue clay. Provide a running stream through it, and you have the 
valley of the Wyly. All the way along, on both sides of the vale, 
is chalk at top, green sand on the slopes, and clay below. These 
three are, of course, each made up of subordinate layers; different 
kinds of chalk, of sands, and clays—but, as I have described it, you 
have the general outline of the geology of the district. 
The river Wyly is supplied by more than one spring. The Were, 
