Correspondence. 335 



UPPER DEVONIAN IN S. DEVON. 

 To the Editor of the Geological Magazine. 



Dear Sir, — As my friend Mr. Pengelly asks me a question, having 

 answered mine, it is but courtesy to reply. In speculating on the 

 possibility of explaining the presence of these fish remains in the 

 neighbourhood of Torquay and Looe, I said that the Uppermost 

 Devonian (Upper Old Ked) might occur in unconformable patches 

 round the older rocks. We actually have the Upper Devonian at 

 Newton Bushell. Phillips long ago figured the tipper Devonian 

 Phacops Icevis from thence, and Mr. Pengelly himself explained 

 the way in which, having coiled themselves comfortably for a nap, 

 they were smothered and decapitated in their beds. Newton Bushel 

 is about as near to Torquay as Teignmouth ; so, if my friend will not 

 admit the presence of Clymenia pebbles at Shaldon to be a proof that 

 the Upper Devonian lies immediately beneath the New Eed there, 

 1 am sorry for him, but I cannot stop to argue the point. He may 

 take Newton Bushel instead. Only, of course, the neighboxirhood of 

 Upper Devonian does not prove the neighbourhood of Uppermost 

 Devonian, — it only makes it more likely. 



My friend certainly told me the fish defences were from Looe 

 Island ; it now appears that one of them only came from thence. 

 Will he describe and figure them, and give us the whole of the 

 scattered (not to say buried) information in a tangible form ? 



Yours truly, J. W. Salter. 



DISTRIBUTION OF WHITE SANDS AND CLAYS SUBJACENT TO THE 

 BOULDER-CLAY. 



To the Editor of the Geological Magazine. 



Sir, — I shall be much obliged if you will allow me to add a word 

 or two to the excellent paper in your June number, by Mr. Maw, 

 on " The Clays and Sands subjacent to the Boulder-clay." I was 

 able a few months ago to pay a hurried visit to a large pit in these 

 deposits at the foot of the Weaver Hills, I believe the Eibden Pit, 

 and one thing struck me very forcibly which seems to have escaped 

 the notice of Mr. Maw and Mr. Edwin Brown. The mass of the 

 materials seemed to me to be undoubtedly derived from the Pebble 

 beds of the Punter, and not from Millstone Grit. The description 

 written on the spot in my note-book runs thus : — " The deposit con- 

 sists of unstratified masses of clean mottled sand, incoherent pebble- 

 beds, and little patches of clay, mixed together in the most confused 

 manner. With the exception that the pebbles are all of quartz-rock, 

 instead of flint, the mass is exactly like one of the mixtures of brick- 

 earth ,gravel, and sand, that lie in pipes in the Chalk." In both 

 cases it seems that the underlying limestone has been dissolved by, 

 water, and that masses of the rock alone. Lower Tertiaries, or 

 Bunter-beds, have been gradually let down into the hollow, while 

 the insoluble earthy part of the limestone remained behind and fur- 

 nished the clay. 



If this view be correct, the deposits may be of any age later 



