262 A Geological Description of the Parish of Portishead. 



There is but little fine timber in this district, wliich appears to have been 

 much neglected until of late, since the few trees that have been planted 

 have thriven well; and the sides and summits even of the most exposed 

 elevations, are very thickly covered with copse wood and verdure. 



The circumstances under which this number of the Journal appears, 

 prevent our entering, as we had intended, into the archaeological details of 

 the district, so that we can only observe that, although the sides of some 

 of the hills are scarped into linchetts or terraces, so regular as almost to 

 appear to be artificial, yet that no decidedly authentic earthworks were re- 

 marked, nor any similar traces of an early population. 



The church is, as usual in these counties, perpendicular ; but its east 

 window has a marigold head. The general style of the building is ex- 

 tremely good, and its decorations sufficiently rich. A vestry, or similar 

 building, has lately been added to it ; and, strange to say, in remarkably 

 good taste. 



There are two ancient houses in the parish ; one, with a singular poly- 

 gonal turret, adjoining the church-yard ; and another, called Capenor 

 Court, a part of which has tumbled down, and the rest seems likely to 

 follow shortly. These houses appear to be of the date of James or Eliza- 

 beth, or perhaps a few years later. 



There are some remarkably fine elm trees in the paddock, at Capenor. 



The geological formations of this district, like those throughout the 

 Bristol coal field generally, are of two distinct classes, arranged for the 

 most part in different planes. The inferior, or carboniferous rocks, ap- 

 proaching more or less nearly to the vertical, the superior, or rocks of the 

 new red sandstone series, to the horizontal plane ; both, however, being 

 subject to occasional variation. 



I. And first of the carboniferous rocks, which are of three kinds : — 1. the 

 old red sandstone, the lowest member of the series ; 2. the carboniferous 

 or mountain limestone, the next member j 3. the pennant or grit of the 

 coal basin, the uppermost here observed. 



1. The old red sandstone forms the nucleus upon which the upper car- 

 boniferous rocks repose conformably, and from which therefore they dip: 

 it is known to contain a few fossils, but these are extremely rare, and were 

 not observed here. Hills composed of it are known from their Hat tops, 

 rounded outline, the quantity of debris with which they are masked, and 

 the copious springs of water to whicii they give rise. 



2. The carboniferous limestone reposing, for the most part conformably, 

 upon the old red, is separated from it by a thick bed of shale, which, being 

 readily acted upon by water, is usually wrought into a valley, which there- 

 fore characterises the junction of the above two rocks. This rock is abun- 

 dantly fossilifcrous, and, besides other fossils, is chiefly remarkable for va- 

 rious genera of the family crinoidea,* product!, and spirifera. Though so 



* CyathocrJnites, actinocrinites, rhodocrinites. 



