80 



Cjre §ttrie& fala^oic %uh of Miltsjwt 



By W. Hewaed Bell, F.G.S. 



)N putting together the following few remarks on the more 

 ancient rocks of Wiltshire in the form of a short geological 

 history of the older and newer strata that we have passed over 

 to-day, I remember that we are a Natural History as well as an 

 Archseological Society, so that a geological discourse — although, 

 perhaps, rather dry — will not be altogether out of place, for arche- 

 ology really begins where geology ends. 



A remarkable instance of this merging of the one into the other 

 occurs in our own county in the drifts near Salisbury. And 

 although the geological record is necessarily very imperfect, still 

 the history of the rocks is written in very clear language for those 

 who are able and willing to read it. Though not written in such 

 accurate details as the history of those interesting buildings we 

 have visited to-day, and which has been read to us by Mr. Ponting 

 from the stones of which they are built, this is an attempt to 

 interpret the still older and not less interesting history of the 

 formation of the various rocks that lie under our feet, and to discuss 

 the probability of that most valuable of the "buried rocks " — coal 

 —-being found below those newer rocks upon which we stand ; a 

 subject which must, I think, be of considerable interest to all of us. 



In the first place an explanation of the accompanying maps and 

 diagrams will probably lead to an easier understanding of the 

 remarks that follow. 



Section A. is a vertical section of the rocks that would be passed 

 through if a well was sunk in the neighbourhood of Westbury, with 

 the names of the different formations belonging to what is called 

 the newer or neozoic series. Section B. is a rather more problematic 

 section, but it shows the succession of the older palaeozoic rocks 

 below the newer or upper series — in fact the buried rocks ; this 



