WATSON-— THE HAEMATITE DEPOSITS OF GLAMORGANSHIRE. 



anticlinals, and thus establishes, apart ^ 

 from the inland pitch of the rock on 

 . the shores of the Channel, the true 

 direction whence proceeded those ele- . 

 vatory disturbances by which the vast | 

 masses of this rock emerge from be- | 

 ncath the coal-measures. When walk- ^ 

 ing over the country, what first strikes ^ 

 the physical geologist, is, the frequent | 

 fractured and upturned edges of the | 

 limestone-strata, wherever the summits 

 or axes of the anticlinals are bared, 

 either by their cropping through the 

 soil, or by the artificial exposure of the 

 beds, as laid open for quarrying, by the 

 removal of the conglomerate " cap." 

 That such masses of rock were once 

 continuous, and the now broken beds 

 were formerly uninterruptedly joined, 

 does not admit of doubt ; and it is in- 

 teresting to notice how the old wea- 

 thered surfaces of the inclined ledges — 

 presenting marks of attrition so similar 

 to those which are now to be observed 

 from the action of the waves on the 

 same rocks at the adjacent shore — are, 

 according to their elevation, either 

 lapped over by conglomerate, or covered 

 with the drift-gravel. If we restore the 

 outline of the ancient surface of the 

 tract as it existed after, perhaps, the 

 first convulsions, and before the land 

 sank beneath the sea to receive the 

 deposits of the newer rocks, by joining 

 the figure of the " coursing " of the 

 limestone-strata by lines proportion- ^ 

 ately curved to the prevailing " dips," a & 



