168 REPORT—1905 
abundantly in the same beds. Still, he acknowledges that, in his experi- 
ence, Estheriz have not been found in these salt-bearing beds, but appear 
to keep a definite line above the horizon of the rock-salt, and beneath that 
of the salt pseudomorphs. 
In this he appears to have been mistaken, for the Oxton specimens 
show Estheria, plant remains and salt pseudomorphs on the same surface, 
and the occurrence of the fossil in the Lower Keuper brings it below the 
salt-bearing beds. 
But does it follow that the presence of salt necessarily implies marine 
conditions? We find salt in plenty covering the floors of the dried-up 
‘vleys’ of South Africa, Some of these are situated in the High Veldt, 
thousands of feet above sea-level. They are fed by streams during the 
rainy season, and the salt represents the material brought by these 
streams into the vleys after the water has evaporated. Living Estheriz, 
are found in these ‘ vleys.’ A sample of mud I collected in a salt-pan near 
Riverton, South Africa, was simply swarming with them. 
Another suggestive fact is that plant remains are almost invariably 
associated with fossil Estherie. They are mostly fragmentary and 
evidently drifted. 
A careful study of the ‘vleys’ and salt-pans in South Africa might 
yield very important clues as tothe origin of the Trias. They are shallow 
hollows in a vast plain covered with loose sand and supporting only a 
scanty xerophytic vegetation. 
When rain falls, streams flow along temporary channels or over the 
ground, without any defined channel, towards the vleys. All traces of the 
channels worn out by the stream may be lost before the next rainy 
season, for in the dry season winds drift the loose sand, filling up old 
hollows and making new ones. 
In the vleys themselves the water evaporates and various salts brought 
down in solution are left as residues. 
It is in the muds and sands thus impregnated with salts that Estheria 
flourishes. The vleys support but little vegetation, but the streams carry 
with them the stems, leaves, and seeds of plants, and these become 
entombed in the muds along with the crustacea living there. 
Thus almost every feature reproduces the exceptional and puzzling 
features of the Upper Trias rocks of England, and a consideration of the 
habitat of Lstheria minuta, especially if taken in connection with that of 
recent species, lends additional support to the suggestion that the Triassic 
rocks of Britain and in some parts of the Continent are the products of 
desert or semi-desert conditions. 
Geological Section of the Cliffs to the West and East of Sidmouth, Devon. 
By P. O. Hutcninson, Sidmouth, Devon, October 8, 1878. 
Explanation and Notes on Section (fig. 1). 
A. Salt Band.—At the point a’ in the salt band, under Wind Gate, 
Mr. W. A. E. Ussher first detected the pseudomorphous crystals of salt. 
They had before been only known in Salcombe Hill, where the salt band 
strikes the beach. 
B. Carbonate of Lime Band with Potato Stones.—The potato stones are 
hollow nodules of crystallised carbonate of lime. The whole series of beds 
inay amount to 40 or 50 feet in thickness. 
