Page:Transactions of the Geological Society, 1st series, vol. 3.djvu/384

 patches, form regular strata alternating with the red, but at the planes of junction graduating into each other.

Close by the town of Watcher, in the bottom of the bay where the harbour is formed, the lyas strata appear to come from under the red rock, but as usual the junction is obscured by great disturbance. On the western side of the harbour the lyas appears for a very short distance, and abuts against the red rock: at low water the most varied curvatures and dislocations of the strata may be observed. In the red rock eastward of Watchet there are sometimes slender veins of calcareous spar running across the strata, and these, as in the lyas strata, are generally accompanied by a slip.

In this part of the coast the red rock begins to assume a new character, for it contains a large quantity of gypsum which does not appear in it eastward of Watchet.

§ 45. The coast between Watchet and Blue Anchor is composed of the red rock with grey patches, similar to that in the eastern part of the district, of another variety of it containing gypsum, of a blackish indurated clay traversed by gypsum, and of the lyas strata. All these appear in the cliffs and on the shore at different intervals, but the great disturbances in the stratification have thrown the whole into such confusion that I found it impossible during my stay to come to any satisfactory conclusion as to their relative positions. No description without the aid of plans and sections would be intelligible, and these could only be made with accuracy by a residence for some time on the spot. It would amply repay the labour of any geologist who might undertake the task, for the coast abounds with interesting phenomena, and he would probably be able to determine decisively whether the red rock does or does not alternate with the lyas strata. He would at