INVESTIGATION OF PRE-DEVONIAN BEDS OF THE MENDIPS. 315 
Investigation of the pre-Devonian Beds of the Mendips.—Report of the 
Committee, consisting of Mr. H. B. Woopwarb (Chairman), Pro- 
fessor 8. H. Reynoups (Secretary), Professor C. Luoyp Morcan, 
and Rev. H. H. Winwoop. (Drawn up by the Secretary.) 
Tue principal objects which the Committee had in view were two in 
number :— 
(1) To obtain a further series of fossils from the newly discovered 
Silurian beds of the area. 
(2) To investigate the distribution in the field of a peculiar coarse 
ashy conglomerate, and to ascertain its relations to the other deposits of 
the neighbourhood. 
With these ends in view a series of seven trenches was dug, and the 
information obtained from them was incorporated in a paper by the 
Secretary.! 
The most easterly of these trenches was dug in a field about 300 
yards 8.8.W. of Tadhill Farm. It was carried to a depth of about 
6 feet, and after passing through some 18 inches of surface-material, 
entered a deposit consisting mainly of very fine yellow and brown ash, 
with subordinate bands of coarse ash. Many of the bands were crowded 
with fossils, which were identified by Mr. F. R. C. Reed.? The series ot 
fossils, though undoubtedly Silurian, and, in Mr. Reed’s opinion, probably 
of Upper Llandovery age, was insufficient to determine the point with 
certainty. 
A second trench dug at a point about 100 yards to the north of that 
in the fossiliferous tuff proved to be in trap (pyroxene andesite). 
The remaining five trenches were all dug in the neighbourhood of the 
rifle butts on Beacon Hill (about a quarter of a mile to the north of 
Beacon Farm), where the coarse ashy conglomerate was originally exposed 
in a target pit. Four trenches dug at different points in the neighbour- 
hood of the rifle-butts showed that the coarse ashy conglomerate here 
probably occupies the whole area between the northern and southern out- 
crops of the Old Red Sandstone. A fifth trench was opened on the slope 
of the hill to the north of the rifle-butts in hope of ascertaining the 
relation of the Old Red Sandstone to the igneous series, but after passing 
through 9 fect of Old Red Sandstone this trench was abandoned. 
The thanks of the Committee are due to the Marquess of Bath and 
Sir Richard Paget, the owners of the land on which the excavations took 
place, to Mr. Ashman of the Beacon Farm and Mr. Huntly of Tadhill 
Farm (tenants), and to Mr. E. C. Treplin and Messrs. Wainwright aid 
Hurd (agents). 
The Committee ask to be reappointed, with a grant of 25/., for the 
purpose of investigating the pre-Devonian rocks of the Bristol district. 
' Published in the Quart. Journ. Geol, Soc., vol. 1xiii. (1907), pp. 217-238, 
* See list op. cit., pp. 226 and 227. 
