449 



intention to make an extended investigation of the bodies belonging 

 to the hexyl group, which are very imperfectly known, as may be 

 inferred from the fact that Faget, the discoverer of hexylic alcohol, 

 has not even published its analysis. 



XV. "The Lignites and Clays of Bovey Tracey, Devonshire." 

 By WILLIAM PENGELLY, Esq., F.G.S. Communicated by 

 Sir CHARLES LYELL. Received November 16, 1861^ 

 (Abstract.) 



The village of Bovey Tracey, in Devonshire, is situated on the left 

 bank of the river Bovey, a small tributary of the Teign, about eleven 

 miles south-westerly from Exeter. A considerable plain stretches 

 away from it, for about nine miles, in a south-easterly direction, and 

 terminates three and a half miles north-west of Torquay. It appears 

 a lake-like expansion of the valleys of the Bovey and Teign, and is 

 surrounded on all sides by lofty hills of granite and other rocks. 



Excavations in various parts of this plain, especially in the north- 

 western part of it, known as Bovey Heathfield, have disclosed, beneath 

 an accumulation of gravel mixed with clay and sand, a regular series 

 of strata of lignite, clay and sand, well known to geologists as the 

 " Bovey deposit," whilst the lignite is equally familiar as " Bovey 

 coal." 



The most important of the excavations is that known as the 

 "Coal-pit," whence lignite is extracted, which is used, in small 

 quantities, at a neighbouring pottery, and also by the poorer cottagers 

 of the immediate neighbourhood. 



The deposit has long attracted the attention of both the scientific 

 and commercial world, and many authors have given descriptions 

 and speculations respecting it. 



In 1 760 the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Milles seut a paper on it to the 

 Royal Society. His aim appears to have been to prove the mineral 

 origin of the lignite, in refutation of Professor Hollrnan, of Gottin- 

 gen, who had described, and assigned a vegetable origin to, a similar 

 substance found near the city of Munden. In 1794 and 1796 Dr. 

 Maton described the deposit, and mentioned the existence of a large 

 turf bog, near the pit, in which whole trees were often discovered, 



