OFSTONES. 63 



Free-Hone is frequently found curioufly figured, both in de- 



tached mafles and in ftrata, of which the following are the moft 

 . remarkable that have fallen in my way to collect. 



A whitifli-brown mafs, in the form of half an Ionic column, 

 twelve inches long, and twenty-three inches over, with numer- 

 ous digitated figures on the furface in relief, in a quincunx or- 

 der, of about three quarters of an inch in length, and half an 

 inch in diameter at the bafe, gradually tapering to a rounded 

 point ; the under fide fcraggy and uneven ; fome of the fcrags 

 flruck off to make it portable. From a quarry in otbbury-fore& t 

 near Simonfide, 



A piece of a fmall flag with a curious reprefentation of a. plant 

 in relief, with a bold flem and branched ; the branches daflyli- 

 formes. 



Another piece with four finger-like fhoots from one root, in 

 bol;l relief likewife. Thefe are formed by the infinuation of 

 water and fand between the lamina. A marble rubbed down to a 

 fmooth furface on a wet ftone, and taken haflily off, will fhew 

 arbufcular figures of its own grit, fometimes like a foreft, in 

 relief. 



Part of a flag, channelled, with elegant wavy ftria? at the bot- 

 tom of the channels, uniformly fulcated in the middle, through 

 the whole length. One of thefe flrias takes a doubling courfe of 

 twenty inches, beautifully ferpentine. 



Thefe three from a free-ftone quarry on the edge of the brook 

 at Simonburn, below the fchool-houfe. 



A large 



