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CHAPTER XVI. 
ECONOMIC PRODUCTS. 
BUILDING STONES. 
THE Oolitic rocks furnish some of the most important building- 
Btones in this country : and among the Lower Oolites the 
following are the chief localities that have yielded freestones 
and ragstones that have attained fame in architectural works : 
Great Oolite : Bradford-on-Avon, Bath, Box, Corsham, Minchin- 
hatnpton, "Windrush, Taynton, Milton. 
Inferior Oolite Series : Ham Hill, Doulting, Dundry, Pains wick, 
Cheltenham, Duston, AVeldon, Ketton, 
Barnack, Stamford, Casterton, Clipsham, 
Great Ponton, Ancaster. 
Over the Lower. Oolitic areas the strata have naturally 
influenced the character of the buildings. Hence in the villages 
and towns, the houses and more especially the older ones, are 
constructed of stone ; and in some cases as at Bradford-on-Avon, 
Burford, Stonesfield, Woodstock, and Stamford, these are roofed 
with stone-tiles. Now-a-days, even in famous freestone-districts, 
many of the cottages are built of brick with Welsh slates, instead 
of the more picturesque, but doubtless more expensive local 
materials, "the freestone and stone tiles are still used in mansions 
where a pleasing architectural effect is desired. 
When we consider that the Oolites were deposits laid down under 
the sea, distributed to some extent by currents, and that the 
accumulations due to organic agencies may be intermingled with 
detritus brought into the ocean by rivers, we are prepared for 
many changes in the character of each set of strata. Hence the 
deposit that may have become a good building-stone at one spot, 
may be of little or no commercial value at another ; and this is 
actually the case. The Portland Stone, the Bath Stone, the 
Ketton, Hani Hill, and Doulting Stones, possess great repute; 
and yet, as their names suggest, the good stone is more or less 
local. These and other freestones occupy different horizons in 
the Oolitic series, and all change laterally into beds of varied 
and often far inferior quality. 
Thus the chief building-stone 'at Portland is an oolitic lime- 
stone ; at Tisbury and Chilmark in the Vale of Wardour, and 
also at S wind on, the best ,beds in the Portland formation are 
calcareous sandstones. Again the Great Oolite, that yields good 
freestone at Bradford-on-Avon, Bath, Michinhampton, and 
Milton near Taynton, yields comparatively little freestone in its 
