Geologists' Association. 91 



Salterton pebbles. The species described were : — Modlolopsis ar- 

 morici (Salter), M. Lebesconti, sp. n., Sanguinolites '^ , sp. (contortus?, 

 Salter), Amculopecten TromeUni, sp. n., Fterincea retroflexa (Hi- 

 singer, and three other species, Palcearca, sp., Avicula, sp., Cleido- 

 phorus ?, sp., Lunulocardium ventricosum, sp. n., Ctenodonta, sp., and 

 Orthonoia ?, sp. 



Discussion. — The Chairman commented on the value of the paper. The 

 distance of the parent rocks, the rolling of the pebbles, and their travelling from 

 south to north, threw considerable light on the physical condition of the Triassic 

 period. If the New Red Sandstone were, as was now generally supposed, of 

 freshwater origin, the information given was of still higher interest. 



Mr. Godwin-Austen observed that one of the remarkable features of the 

 Budleigh Salterton beds was the presence of fine sandy deposits, both above and 

 below, which at once suggested a difficult question as to what could have been the 

 condition under which they were deposited. He thought that they might be 

 connected with some glacial action, especially as blocks of porphyry, 25 tons in 

 weight, had been transported from the neighbourhood of Exeter and deposited in 

 the Triassic beds, which could hardly have been effected otherwise than by ice. In 

 the same manner as the shingle of Lake Superior is carried away and redeposited 

 by shore-ice, so he thought it possible that some action of the same kind might 

 during a portion of the New Red Sandstone period have drifted materials off from 

 the French shore of the Triassic lake, and deposited them in this shingle-bed at 

 Budleigh Salterton. In conclusion, he alluded to the loss which the Society had 

 sustained in the death of Professor Louis Agassiz, its distinguished Foreign Member, 

 to whom the now generally accepted term roches moutojinees, so often mentioned 

 in the course of the evening, was due. 



Mr. Whitaker pointed out that in the slaty rocks at Mevagissey in southern 

 Cornwall, were quartz reefs of similar character to the material of the pebbles at 

 Budleigh Salterton, and recommended a careful examination of these reefs before 

 accepting the Breton origin of the pebbles as conclusively established. The 

 deposit at Budleigh Salterton was, he believed, a lenticular mass of no great extent. 



Mr. Etheridge remarked that Mr. Salter had long ago been of opinion that the 

 fossils in the pebbles were of French origin. Mr. Tawney also had examined the 

 beds near Torbay and Babbacombe, and found the lithological characters curiously 

 like those of the pebbles. He did not, however, think that any of the same fossils 

 had been found in them, nor had they been found in the Mevagissey beds in 

 Cornwall. 



Mr. Hicks thought that we were going too far in search of the original home of 

 the fossils, which might have been in some rocks destroyed during the formation 

 of the Channel. 



Geologists' Association. — I.— December 5, 1873. — Henry Wood- 

 ward, Esq., r.E.S., F.G.S., President, in the Chair. — " On the York- 

 shire Oolites." By W. H. Hudleston, Esq., M.A., F.G.S. 



The district occupied by beds of Oolitic age in north-east Yorkshire 

 constitutes a mass of elevated land divided into two very unequal 

 lobes by a triangular depressed area, known as the Yale of Pickering, 

 towards which the beds incline. A diagonal of 31 miles from N.E. 

 to S.W. exhibits the beds of the Moorland range resting on the Lias 

 of Eobin Hood's Bay, whence they incline towards the Yale of 

 Pickering, newer beds being continually met with as far as the 

 "Kimmeridge Clay" of the Yale. Crossing the Yale towards the 

 Howardian Hills, the previous beds or their equivalents are repeated 

 in inverse order until the Lias of the Yale of York is reached. 

 Dealing with the Lower Oolites, the group is essentially arenaceous. 

 At the eastern termination of the Moorland range (coast section) 



