B. B. Woodicard — Drift, etc., Newquay, Cormcnll. 11 



The early literature on the subject has been so well summarised by 

 Mr. "W. A. E, TJssher in his far too little-known paper on the " Post- 

 Tertiary Geology of Cornwall"^ that further allusion to it is 

 unnecessary. 



The geological sequence of the beds in question is in reality very 

 simple, but there has been so much slipping m the cliffs that it forms 

 a veritable geological booby-trap for the casual visitant, or the hurried 

 geological surveyor. The latter, to whom this class of deposit is 

 caviare,'' having under a misguided system so many square miles to 

 cover in the day, cannot spare time for any but the most superficial 

 glance as he sketches from the beach what really requires careful 

 investigation to properly elucidate. On this account some very 

 remarkable misreadings have found their waj^ into print. 



Briefly put, the sequence of the beds above the killas and their 

 history is as follows : — 



To begin with, at the commencement of their deposition, while the 

 rocky headlands were much the same as they are to-day, the sea 

 occupying the old Fistral Bay stood relatively higher and extended 

 some distance over the site of the present golf links in the direction of 

 the harbour — how far, in the absence of sections, it is iuipossible to 

 say. On the denuded upturned edges of the killas in this tidal bay 

 were laid down, first a pebbly beach full of boulders and then a thick 

 deposit of marine sand exactly comparable to that occupying the 

 present bay. This sand attained at the sides of the bay a thickness of 

 as much as 20 feet, but shelved down to what was then the deepest 

 point of the bay and is now the depression (miniature dry valley) in 

 the golf links. 



To this succeeded the period marked by the deposition of the well- 

 known ' Head,' or remarkable clayej^ deposit full of angular fragments 

 and occasional boulders of rock. 



The exact time in the history of the bay when the recession of the 

 sea took place is not clear, but there are indications that this event 

 may have preceded the formation of the 'head,' the marine sands 

 having in places obviously suffered previous denudation. At all 

 events, the ' head ' spread out over and partly filled up the trough of 

 the old bay and quite probably extended partly up the flanks of the 

 hills. This ' head ' has frequentlj^ been described, and it seems pretty 

 commonly agreed that it was due to minor local glacial conditions 

 entailing a heavy snowfall and the formation of neve. The melting 

 of this snow in warm Summers would release consideraVde volumes of 

 water, which sinking through the underlying marine sands would 

 erode in their indurated portions those remarkable vertical cylindrical 

 pipes commented on and figured by Mr. Clement Reid.^ 



Whether, as suggested by Mr. Reid, this deposit will yield remains 

 of Arctic plants or animals is problematical. No sign of life has as 



1 Geol. Mag., 1879, pp. 206-7. 



- The terms for these beds in what may he styled the pre -glacial days of the 

 Geological Survey seems to have been "Extraneous Rubbish" ("History of the 

 Geological Society," p. 134). 



3 Geology of the Country near Newquay (Geol. Surv. Mem., Sheet S-IS), 

 p. 67, pi. V. 



