Look. Here is lias rock in the side of the cutting; layers of hard blue limestone, and then layers of blue mud between them, in which, if you could stop to look, you would find fossils in plenty; and along that lias we shall run to Bath, and then all the rocks will change.
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Now, here we are at Bath; and here are the handsome fruit-women, waiting for you to buy.
And oh, what strawberries and cherries!
Yes. All this valley is very rich, and very sheltered too, and very warm; for the soft south-western air sweeps up it from the Bristol Channel; so the slopes are covered with fruit-orchards, as you will see as you get out of the station.
Why, we are above the tops of the houses.
Yes. We have been rising ever since we left Bristol; and you will soon see why. Now we have laid in as much fruit as is safe for you, and away we go.
Oh, what high hills over the town! And what beautiful stone houses! Even the cottages are built of stone.
All that stone comes out of those high hills, into which we are going now. It is called Bath-stone freestone, or oolite; and it lies on the top of the lias, which we have just left. Here it is marked F.
What steep hills, and cliffs too, and with quarries in them! What can have made them so steep? And what can have made this little narrow valley?
Madam How's rain-spade from above, I suppose, and perhaps the sea gnawing at their feet below. Those freestone hills once stretched high over our heads, and far away, I suppose, to the westward.
Now they are all gnawed out into cliffs,--indeed gnawed clean through in the bottom of the valley, where the famous hot springs break out in which people bathe.
Is that why the place is called Bath?
Of course. But the Old Romans called the place Aquae Solis--the waters of the sun; and curious old Roman remains are found here, which we have not time to stop and see.