H. J. Loice — Devonshire Geology. 271 



position in tlie consecutive formation of the country would be 

 a welcome one." ^ 



These Bovey beds being contemporaneous with the Eocene at 

 Bournemouth, " we see that this silted up lake lies in the direction 

 whence the great Eocene river came, and must either have been in 

 its direct course or in that of one of its affluents." "^ 



The Eocene river (Hampshire basin) "must have been more than 

 a mile in width, and the width of its valley subject to floods cannot 

 have been less than 9 miles, and was possibly even 16 miles. 

 The total absence of boulders and the fineness of the silt show that 

 it flowed over a comparatively flat area, and the absence of lignite 

 throughout a great part of its thickness that probably there were 

 lakes or catchment basins in its course to intercept drifting timber. 

 Possibly the Bovey Tracey lignite beds, only 80 miles distant, which 

 are undoubtedly about the same age, may be relics of these. The 

 complete absence of any material derived from flint or chalk shows 

 that no chalk ranges were cut through by it, and the quartzose and 

 granitic sand and pipeclay that its sediment must have been mainly 

 derived from an old rock area." ^ 



The following are taken from papers by Mr. Clement Eeid : — 

 " A study of the composition of the Eocene gravels shows distinctly 

 that the rivers that brought them must have flowed from the west or 

 south-west." * 



" The lower Bagshot sands become coarser and more purely 

 fluviatile westward." ^ 



" It is noteworthy that the new evidence discovered in the 

 western end of the Hampshire basin strongly supports the idea 

 that the pipeclays of the Bagshot series are derived from the 

 weathering of the Dartmoor granite, and that the Bovey Tracey 

 outlier so like the deposits around Bournemouth is, as maintained by 

 Mr. Starkie Gardner, of the same age, and deposited in the same 

 basin, though in Devon Eocene rest directly on Paleozoic rocks." ^ 



" The general conclusions arrived at from my recent work in 

 Devon and Dorset are therefore : — 1st, that the supposed literal 

 Cretaceous rocks near Dartmoor are Eocene, and that no trace of 

 Cretaceous shore-line is there visible. 2nd, that, as has been for 

 some time maintained, the Bovey beds are Eocene, not Miocene. 

 3rd, that the high-level plateau gravels of Haldon, like those of 

 Blackdown in Dorset and probably those of the Cretaceous hills 

 between the two districts, are of Lower Bagshot date and mark the 

 course of the old Eocene river." ' 



Ignoring apparent discrepancies in an attempt to connect and 

 summarise the general purport of these extracts, we first note that 

 they sweep away our formerly supposed geological representative of 



1 Geol. Mag!., 1879, New Series, Decade II, Vol. VI, p. 152. 

 - Ibid., p. 153. 



* Quart. Joum. Geol. Soc, 1882, toI. xxxviii, p. 10. 



* Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc, 1896, vol. Hi, p. 492. 

 5 Ibid., p. 490. 



« Ibid., p. 494. 



"> Ibid., 1898, vol. liv, p. 236. 



