Vol. 54.] CBNOMANIAN AND TURONIAN NEAR HONITON. 241 



This freestone has been used in the construction of Wid worthy 

 Court, Widworthy Barton, Sutton Barton, and other houses in the 

 neighbourhood, so that specimens of it were easily obtainable. An 

 inspection of them showed that the stone resembled Beer Stone so 

 closely that I felt sure that the bed was a continuation of the stratum 

 exposed at Beer. As a building-stone it is evidently quite as good 

 as Beer Stone, the external angles of the stones in the buildings 

 above mentioned being as sharp as when dressed by the mason. 



Wishing to see the stone in place, I had part of the lower face of 

 the quarry near the old lime-kiln cleared. This disclosed about 

 18 feet of hard chalk containing Inoceramus mytiloides and many 

 pieces of Inoceramus-aheW ; at the bottom was a mass of hard 

 shelly stone ; but this was not in place, and appeared to be a block 

 of inferior freestone left on the floor of the quarry. It was evident 

 that much labour would be required to lay bare a face that would 

 show the full thickness of the stone.^ 



The following information respecting the quarry was obtained 

 from Mr, Daniel Hooper, a mason living at Offwell, who had been 

 employed at the quarries when they were last worked, between 

 40 and 50 years ago. He said that the succession of beds was as 

 follows, but the thicknesses are only approximate: — 



Feet. 



7. Flint-rubble at the top 4 to 6 



6. Soft white chalk 10 to 30 



5. Hard chalk about 20 



4. Freestone „ 5 



3, Soft chalk with green grains ,, 5 



2. Hard cockly chalk „ 2 



1. Grizzle at the bottom. 



The grizzle was not worked in his time. The freestone, or at 

 any rate the best part of it, was about 5 feet in thickness ; and the 

 chalk above, both the hard and the soft, was burnt for lime. 



The soft white chalk, of which a foot or two can be seen at the 

 top of the quarry, most probably belongs to the zone of Terebratulina 

 gracilis. No. 5 is evidently the chalk which was exposed by my 

 excavation, and which, with the freestone, clearly belongs to the 

 zone of Rhynchonella Cuvieri.^ From the evidence of the section 

 described hereafter near Wilmington it is probable that No. 2 is 

 the base of this Middle Chalk or Turonian, and that the grizzle 

 is the rock also exposed at Wilmington. 



In order to show that the freestone occupies exactly the same 



^ The quarries were visited in 1894 by Mr. Rhodes, the fossil-collector of the 

 Geological Survey, who found a small exposure low down in the quarry, from 

 which he obtained several specimens of Rhynchonella Cuvieri and Inoceramus 

 mytiloides. 



2 This year (1898) the quarries have been opened again for the purpose of 

 burning the chalk to lime, so that there is now an opportunity of checking 

 the accuracy of the above account or at least of part of it, for I understand 

 that only the upper portion is as yet exposed. 



t2 



