Soiith-Western Tart of Somersetshire. 3d3 



in the conglomerate. In some places it is very friable, in others it 

 forms a hard stone, in thin strata dipping gently to the north and fol- 

 lowing the inclination of the hill. Near Bincombe and Doddington 

 it is also found, and in both those places it is very white and friable, 

 and contains a great deal of green and blue carbonate of copper, the 

 latter often beautifuliy crystallized. It was in this sandstone that 

 the mining near Doddington, already mentioned, § 16. was begun. 

 Near Ely Green it is mixed with large red patches, which are very 

 argillaceous, and are chiefly composed of angular fragments of grau- 

 wacke ; at the bottom of the section the sand becomes more com- 

 pacted and seams of stratification are distinct. This sandstone I 

 conceive to be the same as that which lies upon the conglomerate 

 at Alcombe. 



§ 30, Besides the conglomerates and the sandstone that accom- 

 pany them, there is a member of the same series which requires to 

 be more distinctly pointed out. It is a red argillaceous sandstone, 

 containing a variable quantity of calcareous matter, but its most cha- 

 racteristic feature is its being always accompanied by spots and stripes 

 of a greenish colour. These greenish parts are of all sizes, from a mere 

 speck to such a degree of magnitude that they often exceed the red 

 portion of the rock, and when this is the case they become much 

 more indurated, and contain a larger proportion of carbonate of 

 lime. There is seldom any marked line of boundary, the passage 

 from the red to the greenish parts being quite gradual : it is occa- 

 sionally variegated with yellow, and those places abound with den- 

 dritical delineations of manganese. It is of a uniformly fine tex- 

 ture, and I never found it to contain any fragments, either angular 

 or rounded. It is the same rock which covers so great a portion 

 of the Midland counties of England, which contains the gypsum of 



2z 2 



