Reviews — Damon's Geology of Weymouth. 511 



I^ IB "V I IE AA7" S. 



Geology of Weymouth, Portland, and Coast of Dorsetshire, 



FROM SWANAGE TO BrIDPORT-ON-THE-SeA : WITH NATURAL HiSTORY 



AND Arch^ological Notes. By Robert Damon, F.G.S. pp. 

 xii. and 250. New Edition. (Weymouth : E. F. Damon. 

 London : Edward Stanford, 1884.) 



"R. DAMON'S "Geology of Weymouth" has so long and so 

 deservedly ranked as one of our best local geological guides, 

 that we heartily welcome this new edition, and more especially as 

 nearly a quarter of a century has elapsed since its predecessor was 

 published. 



While Geology has made immense strides during this period, yet 

 it is a significant and happy fact that the names of the formations 

 remain the same as those chronicled in 1860 ; and the student is 

 not perplexed, as he may be in some other districts, by many con- 

 tradictory opinions on the grouping of the rocks, nor (as a rule) 

 by finding two or three names applied to the same formations by 

 different individuals who have written about them. The chief 

 additions to our knowledge of the geology of the neighbourhood of 

 Weymouth, consist in enlai'ged lists of the fossils, and many more 

 particulars about the rocks. 



The labours of Messrs. Blake and Hudleston on the Corallian 

 Rocks call for special mention, as, although they made seven divisions 

 in this group at Weymouth, which would on first thoughts seem 

 a burden to the science, yet these divisions are locally well marked, 

 and their names are very useful in the district for those who study 

 the beds in detail, and collect fossils from definite horizons. Mr. 

 Damon has introduced a neat photograph showing a block of rock 

 containing 60 or 70 specimens of Trigonia davellata from the 

 "Trigonia-beds " of the Coral Rag at Weymouth, which may well 

 astonish the ordinary observer. The shore in places at Osmington 

 and south of Weymouth is truly paved with Trigonias — but, alas ! 

 really good specimens are not readily to be obtained. And it is only 

 by the use of the chisel and much patience that such a number of 

 beautiful specimens could have been developed. 



Nevertheless the collector is likely to be well rewarded in what- 

 soever direction he can wander from Weymouth. The bank of 

 Fuller's Earth almost made up of specimens of Ostrea acuminata, 

 discovered by Mr. Damon at Langton Herring, the many quarries in 

 Forest Marble and Cornbrash, the cliffs of Oxford Clay, Coral Rag 

 and Kimmeridge Clay, and again the interesting Isle of Portland, 

 with its stone- quarries and Purbeck Dirt-bed, are all within easy 

 distance of Weymouth. Then, too, steamers will convey the visitor 

 to the romantic cove of Lulworth, with its contorted Purbeck strata, 

 and here the Chalk, Greensaud and Wealden Beds may be profitably 

 studied. Further along the coast we pass sections of similar rocks 

 in the picturesque cliff's of Warbarrow, and Mr. Damon conducts us to 

 these, passing thence by Gad Cliff to the dark shales of Kimmeridge, 



