SS Professor T. Rupert Jones — History of Sarsens. 



bf the intimate constitution of many Sarsens from authenticated 

 localities. 



N.B. — Besides the Tei'tiary sandstones, other and older white 

 sandstones have yielded large and small blocks, now on the surface 

 or in superficial deposits ; for instance, Upper and Lower Greensand, 

 Ijiassic sands, Millstone Grit, etc. 



§ 2. Fossils. 

 (Refer also to pp. 142-147 of Part i in Wilts Mag., 1886.) 

 1871. Professor John Phillips, in his " Geology of Oxford," 1871, 

 p. 447, states : — " I have never found shells in any of these stones 

 lying in their native beds, and have some scruple in mentioning that 

 they do occur in a layer in one of the blocks at Stonehenge. But, 

 as 1 did not choose by chiselling that monumental stone to attract 

 attention to it, probably it may for many years to come escape all 

 injury except that which it must suffer from the strokes of time." 



1878. In the churchyard of Sandhurst, a large Sarsen perforated 

 with pipe-like holes lies at the foot of the old yew-tree there. 

 (T. E. J., Trans. Newbury Distr. F. Club, vol. ii, p. 249.) 



1887. C. 0. King suggested that in the Avebury district the 

 Sarsens were more particularly perforated by rootlets, and that, if so, 

 the shoals or sandbanks formerly bearing the trees were better 

 conditioned for the vegetation than other parts of the formation. 



1888. J. Prestwich : " Geology," etc., vol. ii, p. 344. The 

 indications in the Sarsens of the former presence of rootlets, possibly 

 of Palms, are here mentioned. 



1888. The same kind of fossil tubular marks in Sarsens may be 

 seen in some blocks on the side of the Newbury-Hermitage road, or 

 Long Lane, west of Coldash Common. 



1897. Eootlet-holes, mostly vertical, occur in a Sarsen in a brick- 

 field near Watford, Herts. — C. D. Sherborn. 



N.B. — The perforations due to rootlets have been widened on the 

 exposed surfaces of the stones by water-action and blown sand, so as 

 to leave the surface variously pit-marked. — T. R. J. 



N.B. — Analogous pipe-like i-emains of rootlets occur as long, 

 small, vertical holes, in the Hastings sand-rock, East Cliff, Hastings 

 {Geologist, vol. v, 1862, pp. 135, 136, fig. 9; and Geol. Mag., 

 1875, p. 589) ; in the Triassic (?) Sandstone of South Sweden ; and 

 in some of the estuarine, Jurassic shales of Yorkshire, near Whitby 

 (A. C. Seward) and near Scarborough. — T. E. J. 



§ 3. Localities. 



L (1) Northamptonshire. — 1896. Mr. Edwin Sloper observed in 

 a pit at the Northampton Brickworks at Blisworth a Sarsen that 

 had evidently fallen from the base of the Drift overlying the Lias 

 claj' there. This Sarsen was to be cared for by being placed in the 

 gardens of the Hotel at Blisworth. It consists of a white sandstone 

 with siliceous cement, and with filamentous cavities, which are 

 faintly stained with limonite. 



(2) Suffolk. — 1889. Sarsens are abundant in the neighbourhood 

 of Nayland, at corners of cross-roads and elsewhere. Fine-grained 



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