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Che Buried Palwesoic Arocks of CMiltshire. 
By W. Hewarp Bett, F.G.S, 
AN putting together the following few remarks on the more 
2 &\ ancient rocks of Wiltshire in the form of a short geological 
history of the older and newer strata that we have passed over 
to-day, I remember that we are a Natural History as well as an 
Archeological Society, so that a geological discourse—although, 
perhaps, rather dry—will not be altogether out of place, for archw- 
ology really begins where geology ends. 
A remarkable instance of this merging of the one into the other 
occurs in our own county in the drifts near Salisbury. And 
although the geological record is necessarily very imperfect, still 
the history of the rocks is written in very clear language for those 
who are able and willing to read it. Though not written in such 
accurate details as the history of those interesting buildings we 
have visited to-day, and which has been read to us by Mr. Ponting 
from the stones of which they are built, this is an attempt to 
interpret the still older and not less interesting history of the 
formation of the various rocks that lie under our feet, and to discuss 
the probability of that most valuable of the “ buried rocks ”—coal 
—being found below those newer rocks upon which we stand; a 
subject which must, I think, be of considerable interest to all of us. 
In the first place an explanation of the accompanying maps and 
diagrams will probably lead to an easier understanding of the 
remarks that follow. 
Section A. is a vertical section of the rocks that would be passed 
through if a well was sunk in the neighbourhood of Westbury, with 
the names of the different formations belonging to what is called 
the newer or neozoic series. Section B. is a rather more problematic 
section, but it shows the succession of the older palzozoic rocks 
below the newer or upper series—in fact the buried rocks; this 
