Presidential Address—The Geology of Devon. 501 
the progress of geology in Devonshire up to that date, propounded 
nine questions for special consideration in the future. These I 
venture to recall to your memory— 
The age of the crystalline schists of the Bolt. 
The precise chronology of our Limestones and associated rocks. 
. Is there east of Exmouth a break in the Red rocks ? 
Whence come the Budleigh Salterton pebbles? 
. Whence also the porphyritic trap nodules so abundant in 
the Trias ? 
. Are our Greensands really of the age of the Gault ? 
. Whence the flints so numerous in our existing beaches ? 
. What is the history of our superficial gravels, and are there 
any indications of glaciation in Devonshire ? 
9. To what race did the Cave-men belong ? 
During the interval of over twenty years most of these questions 
have been discussed, often by Mr. Pengelly himself, and the records 
are to be found in the volumes of your Transactions. Confining any 
remarks I may have to make on the present occasion to points 
bearing on the physical history of the county, I would say that these 
questions may be grouped under five heads—(l.) Recent and 
Pleistocene geology; (2.) The extent and nature of the Cretaceous 
rocks; (3.) The New Red question; (4.) The Old Red question ; 
and lastly (5.) The age of the crystalline schists, to which may be 
appended any necessary remarks on petrological questions. 
DAD NPwde 
RECENT AND PLEISTOCENE GEOLOGY. 
The recent geology of the county is famous, as all the world 
knows, for the occurrence of raised beaches, submerged forests, and 
bone caves. On these I scarcely venture to touch, the cave-question 
especially verging on the confines of archeology. If the caverns at 
Oreston were first made the subject of scientific enquiry, those 
of Kent’s Hole and Brixham have yielded results of surpassing 
interest. Going a step further back in time, there are few problems 
more obscure than the history of the plateaux gravels of the southern 
counties : these consist largely of flint. Mr. Parfitt, speaking of the 
drift gravels towards Dawlish, has expressed his opinion that the 
agents producing these were ice and water. To this we can scarcely 
demur, but it was hardly necessary to have included Devonshire 
in the ice-sheet. The indications of glaciation in this county are 
matters of inference rather than self-assertion, and observers, like 
Mr. Somervail, accustomed to the marked features of a thoroughly 
glaciated country, are slow at finding any evidence of it here. Still 
it must be obvious to all who reflect upon the subject that the cold 
which has left such enduring evidences of its intensity in areas 
so near, for instance, as Caernarvonshire, must have affected the 
Devonshire climate to a considerable extent. The absence of true 
Boulder-clay should reconcile the Devonian to the fact that his 
country is destitute of cowslips, which are very partial to the 
Boulder-clay soils of the North of England, and are far from scarce 
in the heavily-bouldered regions of Hast Anglia. It is true that the 
