106 ALPINE FLOWERS [PART I. 



may be allowable to point out, for special reprobation, a mode 

 of rock-building which seems to be gaining favour in many 

 districts. It consists in placing a number of broken flagstones 

 on end, and in every position relatively to one another ; the result 

 is peculiarly hideous, and resembles no possible combination of 

 Nature's art, since the flags, at whatever angle they may be 

 dipping, must be always parallel among themselves, except in 

 the case of the arrangement known as " false bedding," which is 

 one not likely to be successfully imitated. Sandstones are, as 

 a rule, peculiarly adapted for rock-gardens by the forms they 

 assume on weathering, by their great frequency, and by the 

 great variety of their colours. From dark brown to bright 

 red, from red to yellow, from yellow to white, thence through 

 every tint of grey to blue and purple, the choice of colouring 

 is great indeed in these rocks. They are found everywhere 

 as hard grits in the old Silurian and Cambrian districts, as great 

 rugged crags throughout the Carboniferous regions, forming the 

 well-known Old Eed and New Eed sandstones, more sparsely 

 distributed among the Oolites, but forming occasional bands of 

 striking character among the sands and clays of the Wealden 

 (witness the "Greys" of the Lover's Seat and other marked 

 natural rocks in the neighbourhood of Hastings and Tunbridge 

 Wells), and in the much more recent tertiaries appearing 

 occasionally, as in the sand of Brussels, as lines of grotesque 

 fistulous masses running through incoherent sand, very much 

 as flints lie in our Upper chalk. 



Many sandstones and grits pass gradually into more or less 

 coarse conglomerates, that is to say, rocks formed of rolled 

 pebbles and blocks of stones derived from other pre-existing 

 formations. Of such conglomerates there are many examples in 

 Britain, and they are often very suitable for rockwork, owing 

 to the uneven weathered surface which is the result of the 

 different sizes of the pebbles, and occasionally of their different 

 hardness, and which causes them to be dislodged unequally. 

 The Permian conglomerates, in many places of Central England, 

 are great additions to the natural beauty of the scenery, and 

 should be taken advantage of for the formation of rock-gardens. 



