488 A. Champernou-ne — Position of Homalonotus Beds. 



south, wliich. usually ignores the hard grit bands. We may call 

 them for the present the " Lincombe, Warberry, and Smuggler's 

 Cove grits," and their probable equivalents will be considered shortly. 



Within a hundred yards west of the spot where the specimen 

 occurred, this sub-group becomes mottled with light colours, brown 

 grits appearing, and passes down into the Meadfoot series — properly 

 so-called — but in the opposite direction or north-eastern part of 

 Lincombe Hill, the red beds are seen to be synclined, dipping first 

 N. 25° W. at 25°, and then S. 20° E. at 40°. 



The grits of the Meadfoot series are less distinctly quartzose, 

 and are more tenacious, requiring heavier hammers. If we imagine 

 this lower group coloured red, it is difficult to say whether, on purely 

 paleeontological grounds, they would be separable from the upper, 

 but it is probable they might be. 



The buff and brown weathering of the Meadfoot beds disappears 

 with depth, as the heaps shot out from the Torquay drainage works 

 show, grits and shales alike being of a blue-black tint (coloured 

 with protoxides ?) ; whereas red or purple beds as a rule are so 

 both at the surface and in depth. 



In the passage beds described above, I hold that we have a 

 horizon corresponding in general terms with that between the 

 Hangman and Lynton Groups of North Devon. I here refer the 

 reader to a concise paper by Mr. Tawney on this subject.^ The 

 space at my disposal does not admit of many words, but from some 

 of his conclusions I should somewhat differ. He, however, recog- 

 nizes that the red beds are newer than the Meadfoot series, against 

 which they are faulted on the coast. 



If now we look abroad, we seem to gain some insight into the 

 occurrence of red sandstones of marine origin on the same horizon 

 in the Devonian rocks. In the Eifel District the " Homalonotus Eed 

 Elagstones," so named by Murchison, occupy a horizon high in the 

 Lower Devonian beds, scarcely removed from the base of the 

 Calceolen-schiefer, and the bulk of the Coblentzian or Ahrian, the 

 chief home of the Pleura dictyum proMematicum (though this mud- 

 loving Favositid ranges higher in the series) lies below them. So 

 again I should venture to assume, not yet having seen them, that 

 the red rocks of Burnot (poudingue, schistes rouges de Vicht, etc.) 

 occupy a similar position in the Devonian rocks of Belgium. It is 

 in fact difficult to escape from this conclusion, inasmuch as they 

 overlie the Ahrian, and are themselves overlain by the principal 

 Devonian shales and limestones. M. Mourlon^ estimates them at 

 from 350 to 400 metres, about 1230 feet, a thickness fairly com- 

 parable with the Hangman beds. He observes that ''fossils are 

 very rare in them, as with other Belgian Devonian beds of red 

 colour," but adds that " M. Firket has lately found at Fraipont 

 blocks of fossillferous 'poudingue,' containing Stnngocephalus Burtini 

 and Uncites Gryphus, characteristic fossils of the limestone of Givet." 



1 On the Occurrence of Fossils at Smuggler's Cove, Torquay, Report Dev. 

 Association, 1870, p. 291. 

 ^ Geologie de la Belgique, vol. i. p. 68. 



