A. R. Hunt — The Torbay Raised Beaches. 107 



phenomena ; and if one portion is of Pleistocene age, so is the 

 whole" (Q.J.G.S. 1849, p. 88). Mr. Jukes-Browne has therefore 

 weighty support to rely upon. 



Mr. Jukes-Browne unfortunately makes no reference to the 

 voluminous literature of the Raised Beaches which has accreted 

 round Mr. God win- Austen's 1849 paper, literature and evidence 

 extraordinary in its variety — geological, conchological, physical, 

 chemical, petrological, anthropological, archaeological ; indeed, the 

 subject touches all the old sections of the British Association except 

 ■ economics ! 



In 1890 my friend and colleague the late Mr. Dan Pidgeon, 

 r.G.S., challenged ray 1888 paper at the Geological Society. The 

 following geologists took part in the discussion : Sir A. Geikie, 

 Pres.G.S., Professor Hughes, Mr. Clement Reid, and Mr. Ussher. 

 The earliest date claimed by anyone was Mr. Pidgeon's close of the 

 Glacial Age (Q.J.G'.S., vol. xlvi, p. 442). 



The late Mr. Gwyn Jeffreys had considered that the analogous 

 beach at Portland Bill indicated a temperature equivalent to that 

 between the Shetlands and the Yorkshire coast at the present time. 



The intrinsic evidence of the Torbay beaches against an early 

 glacial antiquity is very strong. For one thing, flints of recognized 

 Neolithic age have occurred at Hope's Nose in Torbay, in the Ii'ish 

 beaches, and in the Scotch beaches, all within the 25 foot level or 

 terrace. The shells of these beaches have been pronounced of 

 a decidedly non-Arctic character. 



The most northern shell from a Torbay beach, Trophon iruncatus, 

 necessitates no further a journey than to the Yorkshire coasts. No 

 shells occur in Kent's Cavern till quite late in the Palaeolithic deposits ; 

 and, of cockles (undoubted food-molluscs), only in the uppermost 

 inches of the newer stalagmite. The puzzling Pecten shells were, in 

 some cases at least, dead shells when introduced. 



The Hope's Nose Raised Beach is about ten miles north of the line 

 joining the Prawle Point and Portland Bill ; is in a bay within 

 a bay ; and appears inevitably to represent a very much later stage 

 of coast erosion. Further, the vast shore-ledge in the hard rocks at 

 the Prawle in South Devon is open to the Atlantic : the southern 

 Torbay beaches were only open to the eastward and to down-channel 

 seas. In fact, geology, geography, conchology. physics, palaeontology, 

 archaeology, anthropology, and even micro-petrology, all seem 'to 

 incline towards the conclusion that the Torbay beaches represent the 

 latter days of the vanishing Glacial Age. 



P.S. — The statement that ' Trophon truncatus ' necessitates no 

 further a journey than to the Yorkshire coasts was based on, the 

 belief that that shell was extinct in the English Channel. This 

 belief, based on Mr. Gwyn Jeffreys' British Conchology, and never, 

 so far as I am aware, challenged, seems now to be unfounded. 



On February 17, the day the proofs of the above communication 

 were posted to me, I visited, quite incidentally, the Hertfordshire 

 County Museum at St. Albans to see Roman antiquities. There 

 Mr. G. Ebsworth Bullen informed me, in course of conversation, that 

 in dredging in the English Channel from the Plymouth Marine 



