THE MENDIPS : A GEOLOQICAL REVERIE. 



'237 



kind, timidly hunted their insect prey (beetles, and may- 

 flies, and grasshoppers), little dreaming of the future 

 predominance of their race. If birds there were, they 

 hid themselves from view ; but in the air wore loath orn- 

 wingod reptiles, with cruel toothed jaws. Great slouching 

 land reptiles may have been the lords of the Mendip land 

 of old. 



Some such picture had been before my mind's eye as I 

 worked my way up Vallis Vale and Whatley Combe, past 

 Nunney Castle and the Holwell quarries, to tho central 

 ridge of Eastern Mendip. And then, having reached the 

 old red sandstone upland, I threw aside my geological 

 hammer, and lay me down on the short, sweet grass which 

 clothed tlie slope of a British rourul barrow, to enjoy tlie 

 foir view and tlie pleasant soutliorly breeze upon my brow. 



Near me, to the east, lay Beacon Hill, on the wooded 

 suniniit of which, the highest point of Eastern Mendip 

 (i,()50 ieet), tho contrasted grocn of hirch, beech, and pine 

 showed that spring had not yet fully ripened into summer. 

 To the west I could just see the trees which mark froni 

 a distance tho site of Maosbuiy ring, a line oartliwork 

 defended by a double rampart. To tlie south-west Glas- 

 tonbury Tor, backed by the dim blue line of the Quantocks, 

 formed a feature in tlie landscape that could not be mis- 

 taken ; while nearer Wells were the mountain limestone 

 hills, which must have stood, out as i,slets in the warm 

 mesozoic sea over the deposits of which my eye ranged. 

 To the south-east Alfred's tower at Stourhead marked the 

 incoming of strata (upper groensand) laid down in a later 

 secondary soa. 



My thoughts still continued to run in tho same channel, 

 and I mused on the vicissitudes which the country around 

 me had undergone. Long before the Mendips had any 



