Probable Aeolian Origin of Greywether Sandstone

Abstract

ON reading Mr. C. Carus-Wilson's note (NATURE, March 3, p. 292) referring to the long tubular holes seen in sarsen stones, which he says suggest “the work of marine annelids, anterior to the consolidation of the rock,” it struck me that some important light may be thrown on this subject by observations made on this side of the globe. First of all one might suggest that if these were annelid burrows they would have an average diameter, and there seems to be no evidence that the greywether sandstone, with its once softer siliceous matrix, was of marine origin. In Australia we have a great extent of country along the coast and inland, covered with dune formation, and these deposits enclose enormous quantities of vegetation. Plants that are growing on or near these dune areas, sometimes under swampy conditions, are covered over with sand, which is being blown about the stems of such grasses, reeds, and shrubs so as to completely enclose them. When the dune rock, some of which dates back to the early Pleistocene, has consolidated, a fracture reveals tubular holes which might suggest worms, but from their positions, at all angles, as well as vertical, and from their varied diameter and outline, are easily traced back to plant origin.