452 Prof. Harkness's Address to Section C. 



logical Survey, and my own observations have led me to results 

 similar to theirs. 



I hope this meeting will afford more information concerning the 

 Marwood beds and the Pilton rocks, and that we shall have further 

 evidence which will enable geologists to say whether these strata 

 shall be referred to the Devonian group or to the Carboniferous 

 formation. A band of pale slates, with a few Bivalves, lies between 

 the purple sandstones of Mort Bay and the greenish-grey grits of 

 the Marwood series. It is desirable that further information should 

 be afforded concerning these strata and their fossil contents. 



It appears to me that the boundary between the Devonian or Old 

 Eed Sandstones and the Carboniferous formation is, in the British 

 Isles, placed in different horizons. In Ireland, the Carboniferous 

 slates and the interbedded Coomhola grits are referred to the latter, 

 while in this country the equivalents of these are looked upon as 

 appertaining to the Devonian formation. 



Besides the Marwood sandstones and the Pilton rocks, there are 

 other matters of great interest in connection with the geology of 

 Devonshire. The Triassic strata of this county in the neighbourhood 

 of Budleigh Salterton, have within them some peculiar pebble-beds, 

 which have been described by Messrs. Salter and Yicary. These 

 pebble-beds abound in fragments containing fossils similar to those 

 which the Silurians of Normandy afford. Eecently these Triassic 

 strata have yielded to Mr. Whitaker important paleeontological 

 evidence in the form of reptilian remains, which Professor Huxley 

 has referred to the genus Hyperodapedon. This evidence goes a 

 long way towards supporting the conclusion that the Lossie-mouth 

 sandstones near Elgin are of a much newer age than their strati- 

 graphical arrangement would seem to indicate ; and that they belong 

 to the Trias rather than to the Old Eed Sandstones, to which they 

 have jDreviously been referred by many geologists. 



In Devonshire also we have a better development of the Miocene 

 strata than is to be found elsewhere in the British Isles, and the 

 locality where these strata occur is within a short distance of Exeter. 

 I refer to Bovey Tracey and its Lignite beds. These latter have 

 been made the subject of a very valuable communication to the 

 Eoyal Society by Mr. Pengelly. The plant-remains which have 

 been obtained therefrom have been described by the eminent Swiss 

 Botanist, Dr. Oswald Heer ; and, thanks to the generosity of that 

 noble-hearted lady. Miss Burdett Coutts, who is alike desirous to 

 promote science and to alleviate human suffering, the fossils ob- 

 tained from these Bovey Tracey lignites are now well known to 

 geologists. 



The plant-remains which these strata contain are the relics of a 

 vegetation which, during the Lower Miocene epoch, spread over a 

 large portion of the continent of Europe, and extended into the 

 Arctic regions of America ; a vegetation which clothed not only 

 Europe with lofty forest trees and a rich undergrowth of smaller 

 plants, but which also covered Greenland and Spitzbergen (lands 

 which are now the abode of ice and snow) with an equally rich 

 vegetation. 



