1864. | Science in the Provinces. T07 
Mr. Hearder, of Plymouth, ‘On the Preservation of the Iron- 
plating of Wooden Ships from the Corrosive Action of Sea-water.’ 
It having been found that large holes had been made in a new 5-inch 
plating, he proposed to place gutta-percha or india-rubber between 
the iron and the copper-sheathing, and, if necessary, a band of zine 
also on the inside of the plating, to prevent even the possibility of 
communication with the copper. 
Mr. Spence Bate described a kitchen-midden recently found in the 
north-east of Cornwall, an ancient Cornish barrow, and a Romano- 
British burying-ground. The midden was accidentally discovered in 
Constantine Bay, and consisted of limpet, mussel, and whelk shells, 
bits of greenstone probably used as hammers, and flint, bones of the 
red-deer, ox, sheep, and lamb, pieces of pottery, &c. The midden, he 
believed, indicated the site of a very extensive village of pre-historic 
man. Near the midden was found a barrow, or circular mound, 100 feet 
in diameter. Within it, in a cavity covered by a stone, had been found 
an earthenware vase containing human bones partly burnt. The 
burial-ground was discovered in making the excavations from Fort 
Stamford, near Plymouth. Underneath blocks of limestone had been 
found bones, pottery, bronze armlets, fibula, mirrors, a small dagger, 
and pieces of partly-decomposed iron, finger-rings, scissors, &e. 
Visits to Brixham Caves and Berry Head gave Mr. Pengelly an 
opportunity of calling attention to extraordinary geological phenomena. 
The Devonian limestone is traversed by two systems of joints, one 
north and south, and the other east and west. Some of these are 
occupied by dykes of fine triassic sandstone. A careful study of 
these rocks proves that an almost incalculable period must have 
elapsed since the joints first opened, for there is—Ilst. The filling in 
of the east and west open joints with red sand, at a period not earlier 
than, if so early as, the commencement of the Torbay trias. 2nd. 
The induration of the sand with coherent and durable dykes capable 
of being fissured and faulted without their sides falling in. 38rd. The 
formation of longitudinal fissures in dykes. 4th. The gradual filling 
of these fissures, not with sand, but by the precipitation of carbonate 
of lime. 5th. The formation of transverse joints passing in a north 
and south direction alike through the triassic dykes and veins, and the 
pre-triassic rocks. 6th. The faulting of the entire mass—rocks, 
dykes, and veins—by inequalities of movement in an approximately 
horizontal direction; and 7th. The filling in of the north and south 
open joints with red sand as in the first instance, so as to form dykes, 
passing through those previously existing, the two systems being dis- 
tinguished by well-defined walls, and a marked difference in colours. 
The triassic rocks, it should be remembered, in making calculations 
of time, are a mere sub-division—and that the lowest—of the 
mesozoic group. These facts appear to Mr. Pengelly to show con- 
clusively that the rocks in which they occur, are the exponents of a 
lapse of ages great beyond human conception. This interesting paper 
has been separately published by Mr. Pengelly with illustrative 
figures. 
The ‘ Torquay Natural History Society,’ of which Mr. Pengelly 
