126 A. Champernoume — The Devonian Question. 



The absence of a " Middle Devonian " (with its peculiar forms of 

 life) anywhere in the United Kingdom, save North and South Devon 

 only, was enough to stagger one and shake one's faith in fossils ; 

 and no unconformity in the heart of the Old Red Sandstone 

 districts appeared originally to me to be sufficiently significant to 

 explain its absence. Nevertheless, the rock groups north of the 

 Pickwell Series are unquestionably distinct from those south of it. 



With regard to Mr. Hall's expostulation as to there being no 

 fossiliferous " Upper Devonian " in Prof. Hull's scheme, that surely 

 is a question of nomenclature, and, expressive as the local names 

 'Marwood' and 'Pilton,' 'Baggy,' ' Cucullaea zone,' certainly are, I 

 think that the only philosophical classification ultimately attainable 

 will be to drop the term " Upper Devonian " as applied to these beds 

 altogether, or regard it simply as a synonym for Lower Carbon- 

 iferous, in cases where that period is not represented by good 

 Carboniferous Limestone. In this respect I still think Jukes was 

 undoubtedly right. Therefore I would apply the term Devonian 

 as high as Prof. Hull applies it, regarding the Pickwell as the 

 conformable base of the Carboniferous. This will still leave us the 

 great Ilfracombe-Morte Series as Devonian, and the Linton grey 

 beds as a lower fossiliferous Devonian. 



The presence of land-plants of Carboniferous genera in the Mar- 

 wood beds would be in harmony with this view, and the great 

 profusion of a Productus in the gritty beds of the Pilton Series at 

 Croyde Bay, etc., would make it probable that they represent (in 

 time) the lower parts of the Carboniferous Limestone. 



There are not wanting signs that Prof. Hull's suggestion about 

 the Silurian affinities of the Foreland Sandstones is worth a great deal. 

 In the red and variegated beds of the Lincombe Hill, etc., exposed 

 along the New Cut at Torquay, Mr. Lee and I found many portions 

 of Homalonotus armatus, Burmeister. The genus Homalonotus being 

 essentially Cambro-Silurian and Silurian, suggests at least that these 

 beds, which contain also Chonetes, Rolopella and a small Myalina, 

 may have some Silurian affinities, and may be as low as the lowest 

 North Devon beds. At the same time there are among them some 

 grey red-speckled siliceous grits with superficial raddling, which 

 resemble those of the Hangman Series, and as the South Devonian 

 rocks are not nearly so complete as those of North Devon, it is quite 

 possible either that the true Hangman Grits may be absent, or that 

 beds belonging to the three lower groups of the North, Foreland, 

 Linton, and Hangman, may be somewhat inseparable in the South ; 

 the Meadfoot grey and brownish grits and schistose beds might well 

 represent the Linton. Great N.W. and S.E. faults, shifting an 

 earlier set of fissures, cut out parts of the series in the Torquay 

 Promontory. 



As a matter of pure speculation, I see no reason why the Homa- 

 lonotus red flagstones of the Eifel district should not prove to be a 

 Silurian rock rising from below the Coblentzien (Lower Devonian) 

 of Daun, Prum, etc. 



To resume then : I believe Sir Eoderick Murchison l was right as 

 1 Siluria, 4th edition, p. 282. 



