THE SEVERN AND ITS TRIBUTARIES. 621 



No. 5 is a section of a well now being sunk by the Psychical 

 Society, close to the village of Locking, Weston-super-Mare. 



The uppermost half of the 14 feet of blue clay above the peat 

 contains less argillaceous matter, and a larger proportion of angular 

 siliceous fragments, than that below, which is also characterized by 

 containing a good deal of decaying vegetable matter. The peat 

 consists of various plant-remains, including leaves and roots of 

 yellow flags and spores and mycelia of fungi, while its upper 

 surface is strewn with trunks and branches of trees, oak, fir, and 

 birch being the chief. The fir still retains its bark, and the 

 heartwood, when cut, is often found to have preserved its original 

 colour. Some of the wood has been bored by some kind of beetle. 

 The peat is remarkably free from intermixture with mineral sedi- 

 ment, a grain or two of angular sand, a sponge- spicule, and a Fora- 

 minifer here and there being all that I could find in a specimen 

 appropriately prepared for microscopic examination. In one of my 

 slides the leg of some species of insect is displayed. The clay imme- 

 diately beneath the peat is much more argillaceous than that above, 

 and of a darker blue colour, attributable probably to the influence 

 of decaying vegetable matter. Sponge-spicules and Eoramiuifera, 

 however, are common in the sandy, sediment that remains after 

 washing away the argillaceous matter of the clay. At 20 feet from 

 the surface the clay becomes far more sandy and, as a loose blackish 

 sandy clay, extends down to 23 feet, where it rests on a surface of 

 red clay. This red clay closely resembles that of the Trias. It is, how- 

 ever, penetrated by thin fibres of vegetable matter, apparently root- 

 lets, as far down as it has been followed, i. e. to 29 feet ; if these 

 fibres are those of small plants, as the absence of stumps of trees 

 would suggest, it would seem to follow that the clay cannot be 

 Triassic, and hence one feels a certain amount of doubt as to the age 

 of the red claj r in the other sections, where we have regarded it as 

 Triassic. 



No. 6, Lower Clevedon, is after Mackintosh (Quart. Journ. Geol. 

 Soc. vol. xxiv. p. 283). This is interesting as showing peat at the 

 same depth below the surface as the upper peat in No. 7. 



No. 7. This is a section of a shaft sunk preparatory to beginning 

 the cutting for the new railway, which is to run through the Severn 

 Tunnel ; I am indebted for it to the kindness of the Engineer of the 

 Tunnel, Mr. C. Eichardsou. A similar section, not quite so detailed, 

 appears in a valuable paper by my friend and former pupil Mr. 

 Evan D. Jones, Assistant Engineer of the Tunnel (Proc. Geol. Assoc, 

 vol. vii. no. 6, fig. 4, section 6). 



The upper six feet of the blue clay above the peat are (like the 

 upper part of this clay at Locking) fuller of angular siliceous 

 fragments than the rest below ; and the lower three feet are not 

 only more argillaceous, but charged with fragments of black and 

 decaying vegetable matter. In association with this vegetable 

 matter we find, and not only here, but also at Cardiff and Locking, 

 abundant spherules, separate and aggregated, of iron pyrites. These 



