RAMBLES OF A GEOLOGIST. 245 



CHAPTER IL 



I LINGERED on the hill-side considerably longer than I ought ; 

 and then, hurrying downwards to the beach, passed eastwards 

 under a range of abrupt, mouldering precipices of red sand- 

 stone, to the village. From the lie of the strata, which, in- 

 stead of inclining coastwise, dip towards the interior of the 

 country, and present in the descent seawards the outcrop of 

 lower and yet lower deposits of the formation, I found it 

 would be in vain to look for the ichthyolite beds along the 

 shore. They may possibly be found, however, though I lacked 

 time to ascertain the fact, along the sides of a deep ravine, 

 which occurs near an old ecclesiastical edifice of gray stone, 

 perched, nest-like, half-way up the bank, on a green hum- 

 mock that overlooks the sea. The rocks, laid bare by the 

 tide, belong to the bed of coarse-grained red sandstone, vary- 

 ing from eighty to a hundred end fifty feet in thickness, 

 which lies between the lower fish-bed and the great conglo- 

 merate, and which, in not a,;few of its strata, passes itself 

 into a species of conglomerate, different only from that which 

 it overlies, in being more finely comminuted. The continu- 

 ity of this bed, like that of the deposit on which it rests, is 

 very remarkable. I have found it occurring at many vari- 

 ous points, over an area at least ten thousand square miles in 

 extent, and bearing always the same well-marked character 



