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space, I detected it only in one spot. As the locality is in various re- 

 spects interesting, I may be pardoned for occupying a few sentences 

 in particularly describing it. 



A considerable part of the parish of Barry, containing from six to 

 ten square miles, is a low sandy flat, which, at some remote period, 

 undoubtedly lay under the sea, and is still very little elevated above 

 its level. The links and sands, which compose the southern portion 

 of this flat, are diversified by numerous sand-hills and knolls, which 

 increase in size towards the south-east, and there terminate in a large 

 sandy ridge, probably about 100 feet above the level of the sea. The 

 smaller ones are covered with grasses, mosses, Carices &c., especially 

 with Ammophila arenaria [Scottice bent), which covers also the larger 

 hills and part of the higher ridge already mentioned. Towards that 

 ridge the sand-hills are rather crowded, but to the westward they de- 

 crease both in size and in number, rising however in some cases to a 

 height of 20 or 30 feet. Of these the highest and most conspicuous 

 hill, or group, lies close to the sea, about one mile west of the light- 

 houses, and immediately south of a large plain or meadow, where a few 

 tall poles mark the locality of an old race-course. It is on all sides 

 clothed with Ammophila, but is hollow and broken in the middle. A 

 cart-road runs through the hollow, in the middle of which, and on 

 each side of the road grows Equisetum variegatum. The spot is, on 

 an average, not more than ten feet above the sea. 



The whole district of which Barry forms a part, rests upon the Old 

 Red Sandstone, which, according to Mr. Miller's intensely interest- 

 ing work bearing the same name, derives its prevailing colour from an 

 admixture of iron. I know not whether it is to be attributed to the 

 same cause that much of the sand of the district is tinged with red ; 

 but in the work just alluded to I find the following. — " The oxide 

 deposited by the chalybeate springs which pass through the lower 

 members of the formation, would give to white sand a tinge exactly 

 resembling the tint borne by this upper member." And it is certain 

 that when a cut of several feet is made in almost any part of the plain of 

 Barry, the chalybeate water immediately appears, and that its peculiar 

 scum is seen floating along the edges of a small stream which bounds 

 the parish on the west, and into which various chalybeate springs dis- 

 charge their waters. The general appearance of the surface where 

 E. variegatum grows is perhaps against the supposition that the sand 

 has any mixture of iron ; but when the sand is dug, it is found to be 

 of a dingy brown, and the lowest stratum of the sand-hills is streaked 

 with sand of a still deeper hue. Those facts appear to confirm the 



