430 THE JOURNEYMAN. 



stratified clay, containing nodules of a calcareous stone, 

 prettily variegated with red and yellow. From the 

 breccia to the bed of sandstone nearest the town, there 

 is rather more than a hundred yards ; and, from the 

 almost vertical position of the strata, we have merely to 

 pass along their edges to gain an acquaintance with 

 them, which could only be acquired, were their position 

 horizontal, by sinking a shaft nearly a hundred yards in 

 depth. I used to conceive of this advantage by the ease 

 I found in running my eye over books, arranged on the 

 shelves of a library, contrasted with the trouble I had in 

 taking them up one after one when they were packed in 

 a chest. 



1 For several hundred yards nearer the town, the 

 beach is so covered with shingle and stones, that we see 

 no more of the strata till we reach a small bay, only a 

 very little beyond the bounds of the borough, where we 

 find beds of a stratified, greyish claystone, lying, as 

 nearly as can be judged from their broken state, in an 

 angle of about twenty with the horizon. From the 

 extent of nearly vertical strata which intervene be- 

 tween them and the granite rock, and their comparatively 

 slight inclination from the horizontal, I was led to think 

 that they must originally have occupied a very superior 

 place, and that their situation, with regard to the open- 

 ing between the Sutors, must have preserved them from 

 the derangement of the other strata. Under these im- 

 pressions, I have of late examined them very minutely. 

 As nearly as I can judge from the little of them which 

 appears above the sand, they are separated from each 

 other by thin bands, of a greyish indurated sandstone, 

 and thickly interspersed by flattened nodules of an el- 

 liptical or circular form. On breaking these nodules 

 across, I found them to be composed of either an imper- 



