429 



last summer. Amid the scenes of Wordsworth's daily walks and 

 musings, and in company with one who most duly appreciates, nay, 

 I may say venerates, the name of that great observer of Nature's 

 works, 1 was intent more with its poetical than geological sur- 

 roundings; but having been asked a most practical question, i.e., 

 " What is the formation of the Quantocks 1 Is it Old red sand- 

 stone ; as it has always been my wish to live upon an Old red 

 sandstone soil 1" I at first, without much hesitation, answered in the 

 affirmative, as from the lithological character of the sandstone 

 blocks lying around, and in the absence of fossil evidence anyone 

 might easily be led to that conclusion. However, as geologists are 

 (or at least ought to be) careful to bring their opinions to the test 

 by actual examination, I at once turned into a quarry to the left of 

 tlie Bridgwater and Williton Road leading to Holford about a quarter 

 of a mile distant from the latter village, and after plying my hammer 

 vigorously upon some of the extremely dense and hard greyish 

 sandstones at the base of the quarry, more for the purpose of testing 

 their lithological structure than for any other, was agreeably sur- 

 prised to find a series of fossils which are the subject of this 

 communication. I may here mention that, so far as I knew at the 

 time, this discovery of fossils in the sandstones north-east of the 

 Quantock Hills was new to science. Having since read over more 

 carefully Mr. Etheridge's exhaustive paper on the Physical 

 Structure of W. Somerset and N. Devon, * I find him thus writing 

 of the difficulty of correlating the North Devon and Somerset 

 beds owing to the scarcity of the fossil evidence in the latter : 

 " The full relations of species occurring in the Lynton group 

 of West Somerset and North Devon cannot be clearly arrived at — 

 60 little, as yet, being known of the fossils of the lower gi'itty 

 slates of the Quantock Hills, and of the lower beds that sweep 

 round the Croydon Hill promontory," &c. At once recognizing 

 them as putting on the same facies as other fossils with 

 which I was familiar in the North Devon rocks, I sent them 

 to the Geological Museum, Jermyn Street. Being thus encouraged, 

 I ransacked every possible section and quarry for further 

 organisms, and was rewarded by discovering in four different 

 * Quant. Journ. Geol. Soc, Dec, 1867, p. 637. 



