Geological Society. 69 



2. " The Cretaceous beds at Black Ven, near Lyme Regis, with 

 some supplementary remarks on the Blackdown Beds." By the 

 Rev. W. Downes, B.A., F.G.S. 



The author described a new exposure of the Cretaceous deposits 

 at Black Ven, and stated that the Cliff-section measures 300 feet in 

 height, of which the Lias occupies 200 feet, and the Cretaceous beds 

 the remaining 100 feet. Of the latter the lower 25 feet consist of 

 black loamy clay, passing up into yellowish-brown non-calcareous 

 sands 75 feet thick, capped with chert-gravel. From one point 

 in the clay the author obtained a few fossils, the most abundant 

 being Lima parallela. The overlying sands, of ordinary Greensand 

 type, furnished no fossils, although traces of their former existence 

 occurred in some abundance. The only species identifiable from the 

 casts in loose sand was Cyprina cuneata. At about 50 feet, nearly 

 in a straight line above the point in the Gault-clay where the author 

 had obtained fossils, he discovered a small patch or nest of mostly 

 fragmentary silicified fossils, with a somewhat ferruginous matrix. 

 The most abundant species were Cyprina cuneata and Gervillia 

 rostrata ; the associated forms were Cytherea caperata, Trigonia 

 scabricula,Cucullcea glabra and fibrosa, Cardium proboscideum, Pecten 

 orbicularis and quinquecostatus, Turritella granulata, Exoyyra, Pha- 

 sianella, Serpula, and Siphonia. Only one species is doubtfully 

 common to the two horizons from which the fossils were procured, 

 namely, Turritella granulata. 



The author regards the fauna of the sands, thus revealed, as 

 approaching the Blackdown fauna, and the sands as the equivalent 

 beds. The absence of Pectunculus umbonatus and sublcrvis might 

 serve to indicate that the sands at Black Yen were Lower Blackdown ; 

 but Cyprina cuneata, at Blackdown, characterizes a bed inter- 

 mediate between those containing the above two Peduncidi. The 

 evidence, in the author's opinion, seems to show an alternation of 

 .specific horizons, an inosculation due to changing littoral conditions, 

 but with a general thinning-out to the westward, from which he 

 concluded that the conditions of deposition were such that it will be 

 impossible to recognize in the Cretaceous beds of the West of 

 England the subdivisions of Gault and Upper Creensand which are 

 so well marked to the eastward. 



In conclusion, the author noticed some additions to his list of 

 Blackdown and Haldon fossils, published in the ' Quarterly Journal ' 

 for 1882. 



3. " On some Recent Discoveries in the Submerged Forest of 

 Torbay." By D. Pidgeon, Esq., F.G.S. 



The submerged forest of Torbay has been described by several 

 geologists, among others by De ia Beche, Godwin-Austen, and 

 lYngelly. The latter, who has paid particular attention to the 

 deposit, lias inferred that a depression of 4<» feet has taken place 

 since the forest grew, and that the growth of the forest was at a 



