398 Rev. W. Dotvnes — A Section near Honiton, Devon. 



Mr. Flinders Petrie. The orientations of the sides and passages of 

 the great and second pyramids vary not more than 30" from each 

 other, but they both agree in varying rather than 5' west of north ; 1 

 it is inconceivable that this close approximation of the orientation of 

 the sides and passages of these pyramids should be due to accident, 

 nor is it conceivable that the builders would deliberately have 

 introduced a variation of some 5' west of north. A far more pro- 

 bable explanation is that owing to a shifting of the earth's crust on 

 its core, or of the axis of revolution, there has been a variation of 

 that amount in the direction true north since the pyramids were built. 



Such, briefly stated, are the conditions of the problem. We have 

 first a group of facts inexplicable, unless we grant the possibility of 

 a shifting of the earth's crust on its core, or of the axis of revolution 

 of the earth ; secondly a group of facts inconsistent with the only 

 hypothesis that could be urged against the first supposition, and 

 thirdly a group of facts directly confirmatory of the latter. 



In conclusion I must apologize for any injustice I may have — un- 

 intentionally — committed; an official geologist in India has to 

 contend with many difficulties, not the least of which is the impossi- 

 bility of keeping abreast of current literature, and a want of leisure 

 for pursuing independent investigations. It had been my intention 

 to work out this problem more thoroughly during the current year ; 

 but having been deputed to accompany an embassy to Tibet, the 

 opportunity is gone, and not likely to recur for some years. I am 

 consequently induced to put my notes on the subject together, some- 

 what hastily I confess, as it has been my good fortune to meet with 

 a number of facts which cannot be ignored in any discussion of the 

 problem of geological climates, many of them having either never 

 been published at all, or only in a form not generally accessible to 

 European geologists. 



IV. — On the Tunnel Section near Honiton, Devon. 

 By the Eev. W. Downes, B.A., F.G.S. 



THE writer has for some time hesitated to seek in the pages of the 

 Geological Magazine a publication of his experiences upon 

 the above subject. He fell last year into a grievous mistake with 

 regard to it, and suffered that mistake to be published in the 

 " Transactions of the Devonshire Association for the Promotion of 

 Science, Literature, and Art." It will be his duty, when the oppor- 

 tunity comes round (as shortly it will), to call attention to that 

 mistake in the pages of the same periodical. In the meantime he 

 thinks that the subject, and even the mistake associated with it, may 

 be of something more than local interest. At least the recantation of 

 a published error cannot be too widely circulated. 



The tunnel on the L. & S. W. Eailway about a mile east of the 

 town of Honiton pierces a hill in a E. and W. direction. The cut- 

 ting on the W. of the tunnel exposes the Eed Marl of the Trias. 

 That on the E. of the tunnel exposes some black or grey beds, mostly 



1 The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh, hy "W. M. Flinders Petrie, p. 125. 

 (London, 1883.) 



