431 



Another small quariy on the same road about one mile distant to 

 the S.E. at the bottom of Sherwage wood contains similar highly 

 coloured ferruginous sandstones with a mottled grey fracture ; here 

 traces of plants (?) only could be found. To the N.W. of the 

 Holford quarry, and nearly opposite the gate leading to Alfoxden, 

 at the base of a spur of the hill, is another section. Some hard 

 beds have here also been worked back from the road, and their 

 peculiar mottled coarse-grained silicious appearance reminded me 

 at once of certain beds which occur near Combe Martin, called the 

 " Hangman Grits," and upon examination I found that they 

 contained organisms peculiar to those grits i. e., casts of a 

 f/asferopod (prob. a Natica) and Petraia. These beds dip likewise 

 in a S.E. direction. 



My doubts, if any existed after this fossil evidence as to these 

 sandstones of the Quantocks holding the same position as the 

 N. Devon beds in the neighbourhood of Combe Martin and Hang- 

 man's Hill, were finally cleared up most satisfactorily, for during a 

 traverse of about three quarters of a mile in a S. K direction from 

 the above quarries, my attention was called to a road-side section 

 close to and at the N. W. end of Dodington church, opened (as I after- 

 wards ascertained from my friend Mr. Nichols) within the last four 

 years, some of the beds of which have been used for the purpose of 

 building the garden-wall of the adjoining Kectory. From the external 

 appearance of these beds, coloured red as all the others are, they 

 might readily have been mistaken for sandstone ; there was a 

 peculiar look about them however, which, to an eye accustomed as 

 mine has been to the limestone bands in the neighbourhood of 

 Combe Martin and Ilfracombe, indicated their unmistakable cha- 

 racter. The blocks lying about, taken from the bottom of the 

 quarry, were covered with the usual Devonian coral, Cyatho 

 phylliim ccespitosum, &c., &c., thus confirming my former 

 impressions from their lithological character that they were bands 

 of D^onian limestone. These beds dipped in the same direction 

 as the sandstones at Holford, and at about the same angle, i.e., 25° to 

 30° S.E,, or about S. of E., and graduated upwards through 

 granular crystalline bands, into purplish grey close-grained cal- 

 careous fissile sandstone, coloured externally with the same bright 



