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Hills, is formed of a hard, compact, crystalline basalt, 
which is quarried in many places for road materials. It 
is, generally, in large irregular rhomboidal masses ; but 
in a few places it has assumed the columnar form upon a 
small scale. Thus, at Fansley Hill, about three-quarters 
of a mile from Dudley, on the north side of a quarry of 
the usual hard, crystalline, massive basalt, a number of 
small columns, from three to four inches diameter, were 
found. They were not very fully displayed. At Barehills, 
a quarry about half a mile from the latter, nearer Rowley, 
some curved columns occurred, very similar to some at 
Powk Hill, near Walsall. The basalt was hard and 
crystalline, but the working has been discontinued for 
some time. The Birmingham Canal Company have lately 
made a tunnel underneath the range at this place, which 
is here about a quarter of a mile wide, and between sixty 
and seventy yards below the summit. Instead of meeting 
with a thick mass of hard basalt, they found nothing but 
damaged coal. Both these last-mentioned quarries are on 
the south side of the range. 
On the other side, overlooking the village of Oldbury, is 
another instance of columnar basalt, at Pearl Hill quarry. 
The basalt here is of a totally different character, having 
lost its hard crystalline structure and become like dried 
clay — upon any attempt to remove any part, it tumbles to 
pieces. It is useless for road making, and the quarry is 
therefore abandoned. 
Another body of intruded igneous rock occurs about eight 
miles north of this Rowley Range, which was discovered by 
Messrs. S. H. Blackwell, Sparrow, and Becket, a com- 
mittee of the Dudley and Midland Geological Society (now 
unfortunately in a moribund state.) They traced it from 
about a mile east of the town of Wolverhampton to a mile 
west of Walsall, a distance of about six miles. It is 
