218 Mr. Cumberland on the Strata at Whorlbury Camp. 



blue and purple marl about three feet thick, and above that a con- 

 siderable bed of limestone of a reddish grain, over which is found a 

 bed of compact red limestone, without fossils. Above this is a vast 

 mass of coarse limestone without fossils, and beyond it many con- 

 siderable strata of grey limestone, succeeded by others that are thin 

 and exhibit on their surfaces, when exposed to the action of the sea, 

 some traces of the fossil I have been describing. 



Just above the ends of the strata that contain the cane fossil, 

 which at the distance of a few feet would have cropped out on the 

 sward of the downs, there is found a mass of a partially indurated 

 pale yellow sandstone, separated into strata by thin layers of sand. 

 This sandy mass is in part soft, and in part indurated, and con- 

 tains cavities filled with loose sand. It dips at a very small angle 

 in a direction opposite to the strata which contain the cane fossil, 

 and lies upon the ends of these strata as sand would lie that had 

 been thrown over them by a stormy sea. It seems no where more 

 than a foot thick, and is covered with limestone rubble to the depth 

 of two feet, upon which reposes the turf. 



In this sandstone are long stalks of alcyonia, resembling those at 

 the back of the Isle of Wight, but the mass in which they are found 

 being of inconsiderable size, I have not been able to find in it any 

 heads or roots of that fossil. These stalks are white like lime, and 

 although in general much decomposed, exhibit their cylindrical 

 forms very exactly, and if taken in fragments look like carious 

 bones. 



I observed in a broken piece of the sandstone upon the horse road 

 already mentioned, a stalk of the alcyonium about two feet long, 

 and branching at one extremity. I also found among the rubbish 

 other fragments of stems, which must have been of considerable 

 magnitude. 



