142 



History of the Sarsens. 



Prestwich has so well shown, the Wool wich-and- Heading Beds have 

 been their chief source. (See also the Appendix.) 



VII.-— Fossil Roots in Sarsens. 

 The general absence of fossils in the Sarsens has been noticed by 

 Prestwich, W. Cunnington, W. Whitaker, J. Adams, and others. 

 A few obscure relics (imperfect casts) of shells have been seen; but 

 fossilized bits of coniferous wood and of more doubtful vegetation 

 are known, and especially traces of roots and rootlets, abundant in 

 some of the blocks. A piece of Sarsen Stone collected previous 

 to 1810 at "Stonehenge" by Mr. William Smith (whom English 

 geologists delight to honour) is preserved in the British Museum 

 (Natural History), numbered V. 665. It is full of sub-parallel 

 cylindrical cavities due to roots (like those in Fig. 3). W r . Smith's 

 realization of the geological origin of the Sarsens has already 

 been alluded to (p. 139). One of Mr. W. Cunnington's specimens 

 bears a label, written at the time of collecting : " Plants in Sarsen, 

 near Stonehenge, August 4th, 1847"; and in his paper in the 

 « Devizes Gazette; 3 June, 1852, he alluded to traces of obscure 

 vegetables in these stones. In his Memoir, read May, 1853 (Q. J. 

 G. S., vol. x., p. 123), Mr. Prestwich noticed "rootlet-like im- 

 pressions " in both the Sarsens and the blocks in the Bagshot Sands. 

 In a paper read at the Salisbury Meeting of the Wiltshire Archaeo- 

 logical and Natural History Society, Mr. W. Cunnington (quoted 

 by Mr. W. Long, Wiltshire Magazine, No. 28, July, 1866, vol. x., 

 p. 73) remarked "sometimes the masses are formed of unusually 

 fine sand, and the result is a very dense hard rock. In this variety 

 are commonly found the remains of what appear to be fucoids or 

 sea-weeds. They do not exhibit any very marked structure, but are 

 certainly vegetable/' In the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural 

 History Society's Magazine, No. 26, August, 1865, vol. ix., pp. 

 167—193, in his paper on the Geology of the Berks and Hants Ex- 

 tension and Marlborough Railways, Mr. Thomas Codrington, F.G.S., 

 states (p. 168) that "In a valley between Hungerford and Little 

 Bedwin there are many masses of puddingstone, consisting of rounded 

 flint pebbles in a base of ferruginous grit. This pudding-stone 



