254 Dr. FiTTON on the Strata below the Chalk. 



Dashlet above mentioned^ where some of the beds partially composed of 

 dark-coloured flinty are full of Cyclades and other freshwater fossils. 



(134.) Petrified Trees. — I saw no traces of trees or Cycadese either at 

 Chicksgrove or Wockley, nor could I learn that any specimens had been 

 found there; but I had the satisfaction of finding, on the road from Totter- 

 dale towards Walmead*, at a point nearly on a level with the top of the 

 quarry at Wockley^ several fragments of a silicified coniferous trunks with 

 cavities encrusted with quartz crystals, as in Portland and the Boulonnoisf, 

 which had obviously come from a stone-pit just then filled up, on the road- 

 side : and soon afterwards, the workman who had dug them out informed 

 me, without being asked a question, that all the fragments were portions of 

 one large mass, " thicker than a man's thigh," which, he said, stood up- 

 right among the strata, " like a gatepost, — and did not lie flat like the beds 

 " of stone. He had quarried," he said, " many a piece near this place, 

 " as much as a man could heave up, and all standing upright." This testi- 

 mony leaves no doubt that trunks in the erect position have been found here, 

 — precisely in the geological place where they might have been expected ; 

 and it is highly probable that further examination will lead to their dis- 

 covery in situ. 



A bed or beds, of clay, near the junction of the two formations, in which siHcified trees may be 

 expected, comes to the surface at several points along the river, between Ham Cross and Ashley 

 Wood on the west of the Ladydown Quarries. In one place on this line, at a streamlet which 

 crosses the road from Chicksgrove to Ham Cross, a bed or beds of clay, apparently belonging to 

 the upper part of the Chicksgrove section, comes down to the level of the road, and well deserves 

 to be examined ; and on the descent from Totterdale, above mentioned, towards Anstey Water, 

 is another spot where fossil trunks might be sought for with great probability of success. 



(133.) Portland Strata. — The general disposition of the Portland beds in 

 the Vale of Wardour will be understood from the map and sections, PI. VII. 

 fig. 3., and PI. X. a.. No. 13. a b &c. The upper strata are best seen in the 

 sections at Chicksgrove, Wockley, and Chilmark. 



The stone is found in the bed of the river at Chicksgrove Mill, and continued without inter- 

 ruption on the south of the valley, beneath a covering of the lowest Purbeck strata, which cap the 

 height at Totterdale, to the vicinity of Wardour-castle, beyond Bridsor. On the opposite side 

 of the river the strata soon begin to dip towards the north ; but they rise also slowly west- 



* The names in the Ordnance Map here require correction. The word Totteridge ought to be 

 Totterdale, and should be transferred to the present place of the word Highgrove ; the former 

 being the name of the farm. 



•)■ Some of the specimens from this place, of a brownish hue, were found by Dr. Prout to 

 consist almost wholly of silex, with slight traces of bituminous matter. 



