How to identify the pebbles you find on Britain’s beaches
In his 1954 book The Pebbles on the Beach, Clarence Ellis shared his passion for the simple pleasure of pebble-hunting. In this extract, he details picks out some of the most common natural treasures you'll find on our shores and notes what they might look like after polishing. llustrations by Eleanor Crow.
The Pebbles on the Beach: A Spotter’s Guide was reissued by Faber & Faber on August 2, with a foreword by Robert Macfarlane (£9.99)
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1. Ovoid pebble of grey granite
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2. Grey granite with one surface cut and polished
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3. Pebble of schist with one surface cut and polished. The laminations are more clearly seen on an uncut surface
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4. Flattened ovoid pebble of crystalline limestone (unpolished)
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5. Fragment of whitish chert. Its angularities show that it has not been smoothed by the actions of the tides for long
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6. Portion of a rounded flint pebble. Note the thick, white coating that the grey flint has acquired on the beach
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7. Well-rounded pebble of fine-grained red sandstone
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8. Flattened ovoid pebble of conglomerate
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9. Highly polished ovoid pebble of red serpentine (white spot caused by a beam of light)
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10. Fragment of jet from the Yorkshire coast, near Whitby
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11. Ovoid pebble of red serpentine (unpolished)
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12. Flattened ovoid pebble of schist (unpolished). The wearing down of the stone has given the laminations on the upper side a quaint resemblance to two eyes looking through spectacles
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13. Cut and polished surface of an ovoid pebble of dolerite from the Whin Sill (Northumbrian Coast). The glossy black of the polished surface contrasts with the grey, speckled and worn exterior
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14. Pebble of black chert that has lost some of its angularities and is in the process of being rounded on the beach
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15. Evenly worn pebble of dolerite from the Whin Sill
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16. Fragment of basalt, strongly resisting the grinding and smoothing of tidal action
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17. Piece of amber from the coast of Suffolk
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18. Carnelian pebble, highly polished
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19. Broken piece of chalcedony
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20. Oval slice of onyx polished and stained for commercial purposes
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21. Amber pebble, highly polished
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22. Pebble of onyx. The banding is faintly discernible through the beach coating
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23. Ovoid pebble of carnelian (unpolished)
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24. Pebble of ‘fortification’ agate. The ground plan of the ‘fortress’ can be seen on the polished side
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25. Oval slice of agate pebble, polished and stained for commercial purposes
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26. Pebble of citrine, with whitish beach coating
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27. Citrine pebble, highly polished
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28. Cut pebble of purple jasper (unpolished)
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29. Group of quartz prisms
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30. Flattened cylindrical pebble of green serpentine
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31. Well-rounded pebble of opaque quartz
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32. Fragment of gabbro with one side cut and polished
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33. Ovoid pebble of grit, veined with quartz
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34. Polished pebble of purple jasper
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35. Ovoid pebble of quartzite with broken side uppermost, revealing the structure of tightly compacted grains
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