GEOLOGY OF THE QUANTOCKS. 97 
our conclusions. These rocks being sedimentary, the 
range owes its present elevation to igneous action in ages 
long gone by, probably before the disturbance of the So- 
merset coal field, and which we now know was before the 
deposition of the lias. In their present form, then, we may 
consider them as amongst our very oldest monuments of 
the power ofthe Almishty Worker, with whom a thousand 
years are but as one day. 
The Quantock HıLLs may be divided according to 
their geological character into three parts :—First, the 
northern part, being of the same class as the Linton sand- 
stones, conglomerates, &c. (No. 3 in Rev. Mr. Williams’ 
grouping), comprising rocks which may be described, gene- 
rally, as coarse calcareous slates, gritty, gravelly, with 
great beds of sand-stones and shales. These are placed 
erroneously by Mr. W.; for they are the oldest rocks of the 
Quantocks.* Secondly, that portion occupying the mid- 
dle and largest part of the range, comprising rocks next 
in age, which may be termed the Ilfracombe beds ; being 
of a finely arenaceous slaty character, very fossiliferous at 
Buncombe Hill, with compact and shaley limestone bed, 
of a sub-erystalline texture. And Thirdly, the remaining 
part, containing the quartzoze schists, or slates, of Mr. Wil- 
liams’ group No. 2, but which are now placed above his 
group No. 5, in accordance with the opinion of the high 
authorities who have since examined them. 
I shall confine myself now to facts derived from observa- 
tion, and put the conclusions aside for the present. Com- 
mencing our survey then at St. Audries and West Quan- 
tocks-head, we find reddish gritty sandstone beds, and red 
slaty shales between, the dip being about 22 deg. N.N.W. 
* This is very satisfactorily provedin Mr, David Sharpe’s paper, pub- 
lished inthe Transactions of the Geological Society, February, 1853. 
1854, PART II. N 
