Cil. I.J BURNING HILL OF WINGEN. 23 



that ill each case rain-water acting on iron pyrites has set 

 fire to the bituminous shale ; thus ignited, it has gone on 

 burning at Holwortli unto the present hour, and may still 

 continue smouldering for a long series of years, the bitu- 

 men being here so abundant in some strata of the shale, 

 that it is burnt as fuel in the adjoining cottages ; the same 

 bituminous shale is used as fuel in the village of Kimmeridge, 

 and is there called Kimmeridge coal."* " Wingen," the 

 aboriginal name, is derived from^zre. The combustion ex- 

 tends over a space of no great extent, (See PL 5.) near the 

 summit of a group of hills, forming part of a low chain which 

 divides the valley of Kingdon Ponds from that of Page's River. 

 Thin blue smoke ascends from rents and cracks, the breadth 

 of the widest measuring about a yard. Red heat appears at 

 the depth of about four fathoms. No marks of any extensive 

 change appear on the surface, near these burning fissures, 

 although the growth of large trees in old cracks on the 

 opposite slope, where ignition has ceased, shews that this fire 

 has continued for a very considerable time, or that the same 

 thing had occurred at a much earlier period. In the form 

 of the adjacent hills I observed nothing peculiar, unless it 

 be a contraction not very common of the lower parts of 

 ravines. The geological structure is, as might be expected, 

 more remarkable. Other summits of the range are porphy- 

 ritic, f but the hills of " Wingen" present a variety of rocks, 

 within a small space. In the adjacent gullies to the soutli of 

 the hill, we find clay of a grey mottled appearance, and 

 shale containing apparently a small quantity of decom- 

 posed vegetable matter ; and near the fissure then on fire, oc- 

 curred a coarse sandstone with an argillaceous basis. To the 

 north-west, in a hollow containing water, which drains from 

 beneath the part ignited, is a coarse sandstone, in some places, 



* Vol. 4, part I. Second Series — Geological Transactions, Professor Buck- 

 laud and Mr. Dela Beche on the Geology of the neighbourhood of Weymoutli. 



f The porphyrj' of a hill three miles south of Wingen, consi.sts of a base of 

 reddish brown compact felspar, with embedded crystals of common felspar and 

 disseminated carbonate of lime. 



