Js'OTES AND QUEKIES. 
115 
" ITpon the gravel rest two or three feet of vegetable soil, over which is 
strewn another bed of similar gravel, an inch or two only in thickness, and 
over all, under the existing herbas^e, the quartzose and red sandstone peb- 
bles of the (so-called) Northern Drift. Taking our stand at this point, and 
scanning the vale with the eye of a geologist, we may readily trace the se- 
quence of all the deposits of which the elements of "^the landscape around 
lis consist. TVe cannot doubt that the Lias upon which we stand once 
stretched across what is now the channel of the Severn, and rested upon 
the Eed Sandstone, as corresponding beds do at present on the opposite 
shore at Awre, near Poulton Court. Looking directly up the river, we 
may see distinctly, with the aid of a tjlass, the same bed stretching away 
in a corresponding direction at the Hock Crib, and we know that a few 
miles beyond this lies Westbury Cliff, where the lowest beds of the Lias 
rest upon the New Eed marls ; and these being at Flaxley, unconformably 
pfaced against the LTpper Silurian rock, thrown up near Sir Martin 
Crawley's schools, enable us to judge at what period the great disturbance 
of the Protozoic formations in this neighbourhood took place. 
"All these, from tlie Mayhill S,ind-?tone to tha upper beds of the Carbo- 
niferous system, had been placidly deposited in their due order in the 
depths of a vast sea. 
" The section of the Forest Coal-field, in any direction shown upon the 
maps of the Geological Survey, indicates no relative disturbance of its 
component strata prior to that effected by the turning-up of its edges by 
the protrusion of older rocks, which form the tracts which separate it from 
the neighbouring coal-fields of Bristol and Glamorgan, the central portion 
remaining comparatively undisturbed. The relations of the Secondary to 
the Protozoic and eruptive rocks of the district are everywhere the same, 
and the line of unconformity between them may be traced from the trap 
boss at Tortworth, behind us, on the S.E., to the flanks of the Malvern 
range, before us. on the N.W. Wherever first or last exerted, we know 
that the cosmic force by which that great Sienitic mass was abruptly up- 
lifted produced the contortions of the Silurian rocks around it, and the un- 
dulations of those before us and under our feet ; passing hence, still up- 
heaving Silurian strata through those of the Devonian age, and penetrating 
these again at Tortworth with a mass of trap, it subsides from this point 
under the Bristol coal-field, to produce effects analagous to those already 
described around and beyond it. It is not our object to trace further the 
development of this force and its consequences, but to bring more promi- 
nently forward than they have hitherto been brought in the Transactions 
of the Club, those geological features, easily accessible at many points in 
this country, by which we ascertain, approximatively, the period at which 
these commotions, to which we at present owe the diversity of its soil, and 
scenery, and access to its mineral wealth, took place. In and around the 
Forest we have precipitous escarpments of Carboniferous limestone and 
shales, with those of older rocks, in such position as to prove how great 
must have been the extent of their detritus, carried away we know not 
whither. As the ancient detritic material of the lowest and most compact 
strata — which would necessarily be the most recent, and the last exposed to 
aqueous action — has left no trace of its existence here, we may reasonably 
expect to discover any debris of the higher strata which once reposed upon 
these. 
" We have no traces in the Forest area, for example, of the Magnesian 
Limestone and its associated beds, which in other parts of Englaud, and 
upon the Continent, follow in regular series those of the Carboniferous 
system ; yet we find at Bristol a Magnesian conglomerate, with the re- 
