MIDDLE CHALK—DEVON. 
431 
This freestone is a bed in the lowest part of the Middle Chalk, 
and is apparently identical in character and position with that 
occurring at Beer, near the coast, and known as Beei* Stone. It 
consists principally of small fragments of shell set in a chalky matrix, 
and cemented by calcite into a hard, gritty stone, which cuts freely 
in any direction when freshly quarried.* 
No exposure of the freestone was visible when I visited Wid- 
worthy in 1897, but I was informed by a mason (Mr. D. Hooper) 
who had worked in the large Sutton quarries that the succession of 
beds there was as follows : — 
feet. 
Flint rubble at the top - .4-6 
Soft white chalk ----- - 10-30 
Hard chalk.- - about 20 
Freestone - - -.„ 5 
Soft chalk with green grains - - - - „ 5 
Hard cockly chalk ,, 2 
Grizzle at the bottom (see p. 126). 
A foot or two of the soft white chalk could be seen near the top 
of the quarry above the limekiln, and had the character of the 
chalk of the Terebratulina zone. I had the talus cleared away from 
the lowest face of the quarry by the side of the limekiln, and dis¬ 
closed about 18 feet of rather hard chalk, lumpy in places and con¬ 
taining Inoceramns mytiloides, mostly as broken shells; this 
evidently belonged to the zone of Rhynchonella Cuvieri, and in 
another part of the quarry Mr. Bhodes obtained that Rhynchonella 
with Inoceramus mytiloides from similar chalk. 
The base of this hard chalk was not reached, as a large block of 
inferior freestone, a hard, shelly chalk, lay below, but this and the 
better freestone was probably in place near by. 
* Dr. Hinde has kindly made slides from samples of the Beer Stone and 
Sutton Stone which I sent to him, and has informed me that the two 
stones have the same microscopic structure (see p. 504.) 
