small rising ground, which forms a distinct little ridge about 80 yards across and 200 or 300 long, sloping down gently on every side. The rock is a pale yellow or brown sandstone, in some places nearly white and purely quartzose, in others very ferruginous, marked by concentric rings of a dark brown colour, and containing little ochrey nodules. It had also small bands of highly calcareous grit, and some of the blocks had a central nucleus of white arenaceous limestone. It was traversed by joints in all directions, splitting it into very sharply angular fragments; and I was not able to detect the bedding with sufficient accuracy to state its dip, owing to the smallness of the portion we were able to expose. Some parts of it were crowded with fossils, which Mr. Salter has kindly determined for me.
| Trilobites. | |
|---|---|
| Encrinurns punctatus | 4 |
| Phacops caudatus | 1 |
| Phacops— Stokesii | 1 |
| Phacops— truncato-caudatus ? | 1 |
| Brachiopods. | |
| Clionetes lata (probably) | 1 |
| Strophomena compressa | 2 |
| Atrypa reticularis | 6 |
| Rhynchonella—two plaited species | 8 |
| Rhynchonella—small smooth species | 50 |
| Rhynchonella— Wilsoni | 20 |
| Pentamerus liratus? | 2 |
| Pterinea | 1 |
| Crinoidea. | |
| Periechocrinus moniliformis | 30 |
| Bryozoa. | |
| Fenestella (with close meshes) | 1 |
Fragments of the sandstone were strewed over the upper part of the field near the quarry, but over the lower portion, as well as in the ditches on the other sides of the ridge, were found many fragments of limestone slabs with the ordinary Wenlock fossils in great abundance. I believe, therefore, that the Hay Head or Barr limestone (which is probably the same as the Woolhope) will be found to wrap round the foot of the ridge. The Permian boundary here makes a slight bend round the eastern side of the sandstone ridge.
The second locality is a little gully, just east of the house called Daffodilly, at Hay Head. The bank is never more than 3 feet in height, and it is much broken; we found in it, however, within the space of 30 or 40 yards, Wenlock shale and slabs of limestone on the west, just by the old quarries of the Hay Head limestone.[1] East of this, for about 10 yards, there was coal-measure shale, with a bed of good coal nearly 2 feet thick, apparently in a nearly horizontal position; east of that again, for 5 or 6 yards, was a sandstone, exactly similar to that near Shustoke Lodge in lithological character, with similar calcareous portions, but, so far as we could determine, after an hour's hammering, destitute of fossils; and immediately east of that, dark red brown marls and shaly sandstone, belonging to the Permian rocks. In the next field to the east were the mounds of two old shafts in which coal-measures were said to have been reached at no great depth. At the Three Crowns Inn[2], 150 yards to the north, a two-foot coal had recently been found in sinking a well, dipping gently to the east. I believe these coal-measures to be
- ↑ See, for example, Hay Head Quarry. (Wikisource contributor note)
- ↑ The Three Crowns (per Ordnance survey 6-inch maps, 1888-1913): 52°34′51″N 1°55′51″W / 52.5807°N 1.9308°W) (Wikisource contributor note)
