510 
Mr. Buckland on the 
its native bed, so that without artificial fracture it is applicable at 
once to the purposes of small gravel. These quartzose fragments, 
into which the entire rock is as it were shattered, are of extreme 
hardness, and vary in substance from compact transparent glassy 
quartz to an opake coarse-grained sandstone. An intermediate state 
between these extremes is however most frequent, presenting on 
fracture a subgranular structure, the grains being usually more 
brilliant than the siliceous matrix in which they are set ; but the 
gradation from this state into the two extremes is so insensible, that 
it seems almost impossible to consider those apparent grains of sand 
to be any thing more than concretions bearing the form of rounded 
fragments. 
The dip of the strata, where it is most distinct, in the great 
quarry by the road side, is 30° south-west ; at another opening 
towards the south extremity of the ridge, and near a small pro- 
jecting mass of trap-rock, they are considerably contorted and bent 
backwards, but the sections are too few to give any correct idea of 
the general dip of the whole ridge. 
The trap rock just mentioned in substance approaches to the 
nature of wacke, and occurs precisely at the base of the south-east 
extremity of the quartzose ridge ; but it is so totally covered 
with soil and grass, that neither its extent nor relative position can 
be accurately ascertained : it is visible only in two or three small 
fields, in one of which there occurs also an old quarry of transition 
limestone, exactly similar to that of Dudley ; but its relative posi- 
tion to the older rocks is marked by no decisive section, and its 
extent seems limited to the single spot just mentioned. Immediately 
at this point, where the limestone, trap, and quartz rock appear thus 
confusedly crouded together, the new red sandstone sets on, and 
throws an impenetrable veil over them all. 
