Reviews—Scenery and Geology of Devonshire. dol 
enjoyment of scenery must ever be enhanced by a knowledge of the 
leading facts in the physical geography of former geological periods, 
and of the earth-movements and erosions that have combined to bring 
about the present contours of the land. The difficulty is to make the 
subject attractive and intelligible to those who have given no attention 
whatever to geology. 
The history of Devonshire scenery is probably as complex as that 
of any other region of similar extent, and Principal Clayden, in 
putting before his readers the results of long study on the subject, 
has taken the opportunity of dealing somewhat generally with the 
physical geography of England in past times. He goes back, in fact, 
to the very beginning ere he comes to treat of ‘the date when 
the history of Devon begins to be readable from its own records.” 
This commences in the Devonian period, inasmuch as ‘‘ The identi- 
fication of the Morte slates as Silurian appears to rest on insufficient 
data.’? From Devonian we are taken on to Carboniferous times, and 
then to ‘‘the Great Upheaval,’ when the main features of disturbance 
in the paleozoic rocks were produced. A consideration of the Dart- 
moor granite and Exeter lavas gives occasion for a chapter on igneous 
rocks; and the description of the New Red sediments for a discussion 
of scree materials, alluvial fans, and desert conditions. The author 
takes us as far as the Church cliffs at Lyme Regis when he treats of 
the Lias; and in dealing with later formations up to the Chalk and its 
paleontological zones, he makes excursions to Purbeck and the Isle of 
Wight. The formation of ‘‘ the Post-Cretaceous peneplain ” is held to 
be different from that, described as ‘‘the Jurassic peneplain,”’ beneath 
the Cretaceous rocks. In the words of the author, ‘‘ The first was 
made by the advance of the sca modifying a land surface, the second 
by the retreat of the sea and the advance of land conditions over a sea 
bottom.” Here we have still to deal with many difficult questions, 
concerning the age and origin of the earliest Tertiary strata in the 
district, and the earth-movements to which they were afterwards 
subjected. Comparing the Haldon gravels with those of the Bovey 
Basin, the author comments on the absence of Cretaceous strata beneath 
the ined at Bovey; while he argues that the Eocene beds of Haldon, 
which now rest on Upper Greensand, may have been accumulated on 
200 feet of Chalk that has since been removed by solution. He 
suggests, indeed, that these Haldon beds may be older than the clays 
and lignites of Bovey, and coeval with London Clay or earlier Eocene, 
It is evident that we have still much to learn of the actual distribution 
of Eocene deposits on the Blackdown plateau, as at present they have 
not been clearly distinguished from purely local accumulations due to 
dissolution of the Chalk (clay-with-flints) and disintegration of Upper 
Greensand. Hence we feel inclined to await the results of further 
research before accepting the suggestion that ‘‘ The Otter may thus 
be regarded as a former tributary io: the Tone or of a magnified ‘Parret 
flowing towards the [ north- Jeast, while the Axe may have flowed direct 
into the head waters of the Dorset Frome.” 
The last ten pages of this volume are devoted to Modern Scenery, 
ineluding uncovered Permian scenery, types of river erosion, and 
weathering of granite. 
