434 



and red shale which was well adapted for gravel, and was being 

 worked for that purpose, the dip was somewhat difficult to obtain, 

 but appeared to be so far as I could ascertain about 25° to the W. 



From the various direction of the dips obtained during these 

 examinations I came to the conclusion that they generally corres- 

 ponded with the slope of the hills, and though the general dip of 

 the Quantock Hills is to the S. E., yet that there were a series of 

 small anticlinal rolls, which caused the reversal of the dip in many 

 places, but did not alter the persistent strike of the range. It is 

 probable that the dip of the beds seawards at the N. end, near 

 Perry Court, is caused by a fault which traverses that end of the 

 hill from the church at St. Audries to Alfoxden, throwing down 

 the beds on the N., and thus concealing the lowermost beds of the 

 series. Indeed on my talking to Mr. Etheridge about it he showed 

 me a map in which this fault had been traced in. 



The conclusion then to be drawn from these observations seems 

 to me to be that the sandstones at the base of the Quantocks, 

 unfossiliferous with the exception of some doubtful impressions of 

 plants, do not correspond with the Foreland sandstones, i.e., the 

 lowest beds of the lower Devonian, but with those of the middle 

 Devonian group ranging upwards through a series of coarse and 

 fine sandstones, fossiliferous in places, into the highly fossiliferous 

 beds of middle Devonian limestones, and thence upwards possibly 

 into the upper Devonian sandstones of Pickwell Down, represented 

 perhaps by the coarse conglomerates which occur on the top of the 

 Quantock hills. 



But still the question remains unanswered with which we started, 

 " Are the Quantocks Old red sandstone ? " There is neither time, 

 nor would you have patience to hear this question discussed. 

 Suffice it to say that there are two theories respecting those beds 

 which intervene between the Silurian and Carboniferous forma- 

 tions ; on the one hand the late Professor Jukes, correlating them 

 with certain Irish beds with which he was more familiar, and view- 

 ing them especially from a physical point of view, pronounced them 

 to be identical with the Carboniferous slates of Cork, which attain in 

 some places a thickness of 2,000 feet. Thus, according to his view, 

 they ought stratigraphically to be placed between the top of the 



