Chap. XI.] 
DEVONIAN OF THE QUANTOCK HILLS. 
275 
Devonian sandy and slaty ' greywacke ' rocks, which, dipping to the 
E.N.E., are overlain, on the lower grounds, by true Middle Devonian lime- 
stones, the equivalents (as shown by their fossils, and particularly their 
Corals) of the Ilfracombe beds of North Devon and the great limestones 
of South Devon. 
The lowest beds visible (nearly if not quite as low in the series as a and 
b in the section of the Worth Foreland, p. 272) are well exposed in a bold 
escarpment at Triscombe and other places, where the strata consist of 
a hard greywacke, purplish-red outside, and weathering into irregular 
fragments. These strata dip to the E.N.E. at an angle varying from 25° 
to 30°, and are surmounted by others having very much the same litho- 
logical character, together with occasional glossy shillat, which, from its 
irregular fracture, can only be used for wall-stones. The highest point 
in the range, called Wills Neck, is about 1000 feet above the sea. In 
advancing from the escarpment across these hills, whether to Asholt or 
to Adscombe, by the beautiful new roads in the picturesque woody demesne 
of Lord Taunton, a considerable thickness of these strata is exposed; and 
on approaching their eastern flank undulations are seen. The most re- 
markable of these is marked by the presence of a very peculiar green 
rock, which, ranging with the strike of the formation from S.S.E. to 
N.N.W., has been extensively quarried by Lord Taunton for the construc- 
tion of < Quantock Lodge,' and is the only freestone in the range. This 
rock is manifestly of igneous origin, and was, I doubt not, formed by a sub- 
marine outpouring of volcanic materials (ashes &c.) during the accumu- 
lation of the other strata. When quarried in the deepest openings, it is of 
a grass-green colour and comparatively soft ; but when exposed to the 
atmosphere, it becomes very hard, assumes a somewhat darker tint, and 
will take a fine polish. The ordinary rocks of the hills fold round this ashy 
greenstone, as if they had been disturbed ; but the strata soon resume 
their regular dip to the E.N.E., and pass under the limestones which are 
exposed in various places on the flank of the hills, extending from Asholt 
to Adscombe, by Nether Stowey, Upper Stowey, &c. Along the line be- 
tween the greenstone and the limestones, there are copper-ores, which 
have been worked. 
In the northernmost part of the chain, the strata are very highly in- 
clined. The greywacke, in parts purplish red, in parts grey, used for road- 
making, and well exposed in Sir Peregrine Acland's quarries, dips from 
45° to 50° to the E.N.E., and is succeeded on the dip by the fossiliferous 
limestones of Upper Stowey &c. The only organisms I could detect in 
the ordinary greywacke of the Quantocks are minute fucoidal bodies. 
The overlying limestones (c of the section at p. 272) contain many Corals 
and Encrinites, like those of the Babbicombe and Torquay limestones of 
South Devon; and Mr. Etheridge, who has examined the localities since 
my visit, assures me that the identity of the remains from these different 
t 2 
