Notices of Memoirs — H. B. Woodward- — Bagshot Beds. 515 



the origins from which these world-shaking disturbances have 

 originated. Nearly all of these, fortunately for humanity, are 

 suboceanic and remote from thickly populated shores. From the 

 sea-waves they sometimes create, the increase in oceanic depths 

 found to have taken place after their occurrence, and the subsidences 

 or upheavals of neighbouring shore-lines, the inference is that their 

 cause is a caving in of some ill-supported portion of the earth's 

 crust ; a furrow on the face of the world has been deepened, whilst 

 a bounding ridge may have been elevated. When these stupendous 

 changes have taken place near to a volcano which has long been 

 dormant, the violent shakings of its foundations have resulted in the 

 imprisoned vapours suddenly bursting into activity. An activity of 

 this description was apparently the immediate cause of the recent 

 disasters in the West Indies; in fact, all the recorded eruptions 

 in these islands have been preceded by sudden adjustments in 

 neighbouring rocky folds. 



Another section of the Report treats of the nature of the waves 

 which so frequently pass through our earth and sweep its surface. 

 Although this, like other sections, is of interest from a purely 

 scientific standpoint, we observe that many of the investigations, 

 as for example those bearing upon the choice of a site for an 

 observatory, localizing districts where it would be unwise to lay 

 a cable, have practical bearings of considerable importance. 



With a desire to extend seismological investigations on the lines 

 inaugurated by the British Association, we learn that the German 

 Government had approached other nationalities inviting international 

 co-operation. The Eeport before us indicates that co-operation of 

 this nature is to a great extent un fait accompli. 



IT. — Note on the Occurrence of Bagshot Beds at Combe Pyne, 

 NEAR Lybie Eegis.^ By Horace B. Woodward, F.R.S. 



IN the Summary of Progress of the Geological Survey for 1900, 

 p. 122, Mr. Clement Eeid remarked, " It is probable that 

 a chain of outliers of the Bagshot river-gravels will connect the 

 Eocene of Dorset with that of Bovey Tracey in Devon." 



The cuttings on the new railway between Axminster and Lyme 

 Regis have since displayed, in the neighbourhood of Combe Pyne 

 Hill, at an elevation of about 400 feet, beds of fine white sand, 

 white pipeclay, and white, red, and mottled stony clays, with much 

 rough flint and chert gravel. These beds have in places a marked 

 inclination towards the east, due probably to original deposition, 

 and in all respects they bear a close resemblance to the white and 

 coloured clays and sands, and the coarse gravels, which border the 

 Bovey basin at Wolborough and other places near Newton Abbot. 

 They rest on a platform of Upper Greensand. 



The beds at Wolborough I some years ago regarded as equivalent 

 to the ' plateau drifts ' of Haldon, but Mr. Reid has recently brought 



^ Abstract of a paper read at the British Association, Belfast, September, 1902, in 

 Section C (Geology) . Commimicated by permission of the Director of the Geological 

 Sm-yev. 



