4 t v THE CRETACEOUS ROCKS OF BRITAIN 
Inland, and about one mile west of the village of Beer, ar£ 
large quarries where the Beer Stone has been worked for several 
centuries, at first by open quarrying, but more recently by means 
of adits driven into the hill. The open quarry is about 80 feet 
deep, and the upper beds were formerly burnt for lime. A good 
section through the lower half of the zone of T erebratulina 
and through that of Rhynchonella Guvieri is here shown. The 
uppermost 30 feet is inaccessible, but the rest is easily measured 
and the whole section is as follows : — 
feet. 
s 
s o3 
e g 
v. 
so 
* cO 
' <>> 
CD 
c* • 
O 
pUX o 
'Soil and broken chalk, with a few flints - about 
Conspicuous layer of black Hints. 
Chalk with many courses of flints - - „ 
Chalk with few flints - . 
( Chalk without flints - 
| Soft white chalk with scattered flints and some in 
layers - - - . 
Soft smooth chalk (1 or - 2 feet), passing down into 
rough nodular chalk, varying from 6 to 15 inches, 
V Galerites subrotundus and Rhynch. Guvieri - 
^Very hard compact yellowish limestone, passing- 
down into hard shelly brecciated chalk (buff and 
white) ; Rhynch. Guvieri and Ter. semiglobosa 
Bough yellowish nodular chalk, rather coarse-grained 
and apparently consisting of comminuted shell 
fragments, Inoceramus mytiloides - 
Somewhat nodular chalk, like the last, called the 
“ roof course ” or “ cocldy bed - 
Compact crystalline freestone in thick beds - 
\Freestone in thinner beds and harder - 
9 
24 
6 
3 
8 
2 } 
2 * 
m 
3 
8 
5 
82 
The two lowest beds, with a combined thickness of about 13 feet, 
form the rock known as the Beer Stone or freestone of Beer. It 
is a granular limestone, consisting almost entirely of comminuted 
fragments of Inoceramus shells (see p. 506). From the freestone 
Mr. Rhodes obtained Nautilus sp., Inoceramus mytiloides, Ptychodus 
mammillaris, Rhynchonella Guvieri , Galerites castanea, Hemiaster 
minimus , and Terebratula semiglobosa. 
It is quarried by adits, which now form a large subterranean 
cavern under the hill to the north. In former days still lower beds 
seem to have been exposed which are not now to be seen in this or in 
any of the older workings in the valley, of which' there are several. 
A detailed account of the Beer Stone was published in 1826 by 
Sir H. de la Beche,* who says: “ Beneath 18 feet of indurated 
chalk without flints, which they call ‘ skull/ the workmen enu¬ 
merate eight beds." He gives a list of these beds which vary in 
hardness from soft to very hard, and have an aggregate thickness 
of 12 feet 4 inches. “ Beneath these are about 5 or 6 feet of hard 
calcareous rock which burns into good lime, but is not quarried 
as the others am. Beneath this the sandstones commence.” 
* Trans. Geol. Sue., Ser. 2, Vol. ii. p. 78. 
