George Cumberland

“ The island contains about three acres of green sward, the remainder of the surface consisting of limestone rocks, which are deeply excavated. It serves during the sprat season as a place of resort for fishermen, who have extended their sprat-bangs from the island to the main land.
A narrow horse road forms the descent from the downs in the island to the level of the sea, and it is just where the road begins to quit the sward on the left hand side opposite the sea, that a narrow stratum of soft red sandstone appears. ”

“ WHORLBURY CAMP is a considerable Roman station situated just above Weston-super-Mare on a high and well defended promontory that projects into the Severn sea. At the foot of the promontory, and at its northern extremity, is a small island, connected to the main land by a bank of rocks, and always accessible at low water. ”

“ It is rarely obtained more than five inches long, generally curved, but sometimes straight, and of all degrees of thickness from a quarter of an inch to five inches. These fossils lie in great disorder, and are apt to separate at their joints on extracting them from their matrix; and many appear to have had their joints separated as they lay in the sandstone, the ends of the joints being covered with a thin coat of quartz. Many of these fossils have their hollows between the joints filled with hard sandstone, but the greater part have their centres quite filled with the hardest white quartz ”