204 STRATIGKAPHICAL GEOLOGY 



sp., and Phacops Ferdinandi. The place whence the beds take their 

 name is Meadfoot Beach, east of Torquay, and near that locality 

 they include bands of fossiliferous brown grit (originally calcareous), 

 from which Homalonotus armatus, Leptczna laticosta, Chonetes 

 sarcinulata, Spirifer hystericus, and Sp. paradoxus have been 

 obtained. 



The Staddon grits, which take their name from Staddon Point 

 near Plymouth, are red and purplish -grey grits with intercalations 

 of red shale and mudstone. Their outcrop is nearly continuous 

 from St. Breock Downs to Plymouth, and thence eastward to the 

 coast south of Brixham ; they are brought in again to the north- 

 ward around Paignton by a local anticline. At Torquay they are 

 exposed on the Warberry and Lincombe Hills which form the 

 centre of a complex and faulted anticline (see Fig. 67), and they 

 have yielded a few fossils, among which are Leptcena laticosta, 

 Bellerophon trilobatus, Streptorhynchus umbraculum, Spirifers, and 

 species of Orthoceras, Cyrtoceras, and Homalonotus. 



Passing now to North Devon the first point to be noted is the 

 difference in the lithological character of the lowest beds. The 

 Foreland sandstones occupy the position of the Dartmouth slates, 

 and they contain remains of Pteraspis, but they are hard sandstones 

 or grits, of red, brown, and grey colours, mostly of fine grain, but 

 including some coarse and even pebbly beds. They were clearly 

 deposited much nearer to a shore-line which must have lain in the 

 space now occupied by the Bristol Channel. 



The Lynton Beds consist chiefly of hard slates with some beds 

 of grit and occasional calcareous bands, and are supposed to be 

 from 1200 to 1500 feet thick. Fossils are fairly abundant, but 

 in a bad state of preservation. The following have been recorded : 

 Spirifer primcevus, Sp. hystericus, S. Icevicosta, S. speciosus, Orthis 

 arcuata, Chonetes sordida, and Orthotetes umbraculum. These beds 

 are succeeded by the Hangman grits, which consist of brown, 

 green, yellow, and red sandstones with some coarse red and 

 speckled grits in the upper part. They form the cliffs between 

 Woodabay and Combe Martin Bay, and are probably more than 

 1500 feet thick. No fossils except a few casts in the highest beds 

 have been found. The Hangman grits correspond in every way 

 with the Staddon grits of South Devon, and the Lynton Beds as 

 clearly represent the Meadfoot Beds. 



The Morte slates have already been mentioned, and their 

 position is shown on the map (Fig. 64), and in the section, 

 Fig. 68. Jukes was the first to suspect the existence of a great 

 fault along the southern boundary of the Morte slates, 1 but he 

 imagined that these slates were of Carboniferous age, and that 



