Geology of Herefordshire, S^c. 39 



agriculturists term a light frith. I include these bucolical ob- 

 servations, because I think that such information is connecting 

 some beneficial objects with geological research, and freeing it 

 from the mere barren pedantry of an unintelligible collection of 

 names, and unprofitable particulars. Whenever a road has been 

 hollowed out, every bank has a lamellar succession of sand- 

 stone, gradually crumbling into soil, and hardly retaining its 

 saxified character ; thus we trace in the decay of rocks, the for- 

 mation of plains, not exceeded by any in fecundity and luxuri- 

 ance of vegetation. This sandstone no where, as I have found, 

 contains organic remains. When I was leaving Herefordshire, 

 I did indeed hear that some way up in the country, a bed of 

 shells had been discovered, but I had no opportunity of making 

 any investigation. It has been said that sandstone never con- 

 tains fossil shells, but this observation is certainly incorrect. 



We must now proceed to the millstone grit. The term brecchia 

 has been given to this ; but if I rightly comprehend that term, 

 it is improperly given to a congeries of coarse grit, pebble, and 

 quartz ; an original formation. If not formed at the same time, 

 this rock must have early succeeded the sandstone ; it fills the 

 channel of the river with its separated pebbles of white quartz, 

 coarse red, and some other varieties. It will give some idea of 

 the united thickness and elevation of the consolidated masses 

 of sandstone below, and the grit above, when I observe that 

 the superior point of every hill, rising at the mean at about an 

 angle of thirty, is capped with the latter of these, and declining 

 suddenly and almost uniformly from N.W. to S.E. the limestone 

 and coal is superimposed, commencing at different degrees of 

 distance from the siimmum jugum. The most singular points 

 of observation which refer to this conglomerate rock is its state 

 of ruin, and disintegration, every where in immense ledges, and 

 here and there rolled into the valleys, and covering the more 

 gradual slopes ; it presents however full vestiges of its primor- 

 dial regularity in its ledgelike cincture of these hills, jutting out 

 at the highest projection, and like dotted lines, marking its dip 

 through their oblong sides to theS.W.,and under the limestones. 

 Masses are seen resting against cottages, others descending 

 ijjto the river course, and the plains. We see it in very funtas- 



