Vol. 52.] ON THE UPPER PORTION OF DUNDRY HILL. 713 



not found where the section was measured, but the missing beds, 

 Nob. 3 & 4, were found 35 yards eastward. Still farther east all the 

 beds numbered 3 to 7, inclusive, were absent, and Bed 2 was sepa- 

 rated from Bed 8 only by a thin band of a blackish dense stone. To 

 the west in the same cutting a somewhat crystalline stone, presumably 

 representing Beds 1 & 2, rests on about 4 inches of the fahife rum-bed 

 No. 7 ; so that here Beds 3 to 6 are absent. Still farther west, and 

 also in the next cutting towards Radstock, Beds 3 to 7 have but 

 narrowly escaped total denudation, and they remain as relics of the 

 destruction which took place prior to the deposition of the strata 

 of the Garantiance hemerae. 



X. The "Water-bearing Beds of Dundry Hill. 



Springs issue at two principal levels, and occasionally at two or 

 three others, on the upper slopes of Dundry Hill. The chief level 

 for large springs is at the top of the shales of the Dumortieria- 

 beds, the water often welling forth in streams of considerable 

 volume and of great persistence where the Aalenian limestones 

 rest upon these impervious argillaceous strata. This is the chief 

 water-bearing bed of Dundry village ; in fact, it is because the 

 Dumortieria-beds, are clay that the houses of Dundry occupy their 

 present position : had the Dumortieria-beds been sands, the water- 

 bearing surface would have been nearly 50 feet lower down than it 

 is now. 



The level next in importance for springs is the base of the Marl- 

 stone Rock, from which water is thrown out at various points along 

 the eastern portion of the northern escarpment and also on the sides 

 of the valley below East Dundry. 



At certain points on the western side of the hill, where the Marl- 

 stone is absent, or, if present, exists in so fluctuating and attenuated 

 a form as to have hitherto escaped detection, springs occasionally 

 break out from the ' bifrons-beds ' : the Elwell spring, south of 

 Castle Farm, is an example. The ' Cephalopod-bed,' or ' bifrotis- 

 beds,' also often gives out small springs on the hillside, both on the 

 northern and the southern escarpment. Moreover, small springs 

 occasionally break out from the grey sandstones in, and especially 

 near the base of, the Dumortieria- clays : several of the drinking- 

 pools for cattle are thus supplied. Such is the source of the small 

 spring just above the Elwell spring ; of another spring at the old 

 and dismantled Pickwick Farm, west of Maes Knoll; while until 

 recently there was a small spring visible in these beds on the right- 

 hand side of the main road, immediately south of the Butchers' 

 Arms. 



Another occasional level for water is formed by the shales with 

 Terebratula Eudesi — that is, at about the junction of the strata of 

 Bajocian age with those of Aalenian date, one of these being just 

 below Castle Farm on the western escarpment. 



Some of the smaller springs dry up altogether in the middle of 

 summer, or in very dry seasons ; but the larger springs of Dundry 

 Hill are remarkably persistent. 



