W. A. E. Ussher — Palceozoic Boclcs of Devon and Somerset. 445 



square miles. They consist of neutral and dark bluisli-grey, even- 

 bedded grits, schistose grits and schists, with fossiliferous calcareous 

 films. They pass insensibly upward into the Hangman series. 

 Taking their upper boundary at the coast north of Trentishoe, it 

 trends thence E.S.E., through Martinhoe, by Barbrick Mill, near 

 Brendon Parsonage, along the slope of Oare Oak Hill, and at the 

 base of Black Barrow Down, I'unning into the fault on the north-west 

 of Luccot Hill, where the Lj'nton beds, near their final disappearance 

 in the East Lynn valley, exhibit a perfectly conformable junction 

 with the overlying Middle Devonian, or Hangman, grits. 



Hangman Grits. — The Hangman grits occupy a superficies of 

 about fifty square miles. They are very variable in character, and 

 frequently associated with slaty or shaly beds. The upper part of 

 the division generally consists of rather coarse whitish quartzose 

 grits speckled with red ; bard red and grey grits, red finely mica- 

 ceous grit associated with shaly materials, often characterize the 

 middle portion, whilst lilac and dull-grey grits, sometimes flaggy 

 or slaty, predominate in the lower portion of the division. The 

 variability of this division often renders the site of its faulted 

 junction with the Foreland group between Luccot Hill and Withy- 

 combe very indefinite. The features made by the Hangman series 

 are less abrupt than those of the Foi'eland rocks, and, unlike them, 

 form graceful outlines rising in dominant depressed peaks in the 

 higher districts, as in Dunkery Beacon and the Quantocks, when 

 viewed from a western aspect. 



The junction of the Hangman beds with the Middle Devonian 

 slate series, as shown in the cliffs of the Little Hangman Hill bound- 

 ing Combe Martin Bay, forms a conformable passage through the 

 presence of grits at the base of the latter. 



From the coast the junction runs by Holstone, on the north of 

 Paracombe, at the foot of Chapman Barrows, by Oare Oak to the 

 source of the Exe, and thence trends east, at the foot of Black 

 Barrow Down and Cbdsend Moor. On the east of Luckham Barrows 

 the Hangman beds are apparently cut out by a faulted projection of 

 raddled slates of the overlying series, bu^t they are again brought up 

 by the Timberscombe valley fault, and constitute the major part of 

 Croydon Hill, occurring also in faulted patches on the south of it. 

 They pass under the slate series at the east end of Croydon Hill. 

 Hangman grits form the north part of the Quantocks, extending as 

 far south as Bagborough, but bounded by faulted strips of the slate 

 series between Bagborough and Crowcombe on the margin of the 

 Triassic districts. On the east margin of the Quantocks the slate 

 series wraps round the Hangman beds, being evidenced as far north 

 as Doddington, and in the stream bed by Holford. 



The Middle Devonian slate series occupies a superficies of about 

 a hundred and seventy square miles. It forms a band averaging 

 four miles in width from the Woolacombe Sands to Winsford. From 

 Winsford it extends in a faulted northerly projection cutting out 

 the Hangman beds between Croydon Hill and Luclcham Barrows. 

 It forms the whole Brendon area east, south-east, and south of 

 Croydon Hill, and the southern part of the Quantocks. 



