574 Correspondence — Mr. Horace B. Woodward. 



its traditions, but it lias been greatly favoured by the advance of 

 geology, and is thereby acquiring the claims of an exact and recog- 

 nized department of science ; whatever its development, the mode 

 of reasoning adopted must ere long be acted upon by that worked out 

 in geology. 



ooiaiaiESi^'oisrnDiEisrciB. 



BOULDER CLAY (?) IN DEVONSHIRE- 

 SiK, — Eapid traverses and hasty observations have been rather 

 severely criticized in a recent number of your Magazine ; but it is 

 possible that even in a hurried visit one may make some useful 

 suggestion. During a recent erratic traverse I saw what 1 took to be 

 Boulder Drift in Devonshire. Coming from South Wales to Tiverton 

 by way of Worcestershire, I was much struck with the similarity 

 of some of the drift deposits in that part of Devonshire to those 

 boulder beds which obscure , a great part of the country be- 

 tween Cardiff and Bridgend, where I was engaged for some time, 

 and often with much " scientific use of the imagination," in com- 

 pleting the re -survey of the southern part of Glamorganshire, which 

 was chiefly done by Mr. Bristow. The deposits in both areas are 

 made up of what may be local materials, at any rate they have not 

 come from far, being large boulders of Carboniferous sandstones 

 and grits, quartz, and Old Eed Sandstone. Those in South Wales are 

 clearly of glacial origin. May we not, therefore, look upon these 

 deposits in Devonshire which possess an identity in character as 

 being of similar origin ? These are, of course, the ordinary river 

 gravels as well in these parts ; but the position of some of the 

 deposits in many places near Tiverton, which were pointed out to 

 me by Mr. Ussher, forbids any notion of their being due to the 

 action of rain and rivers: they seem to have been deposited after 

 the land obtained its present general features, and being irrespective 

 of any level, occupying the highest ground, and sometimes coating 

 the hills, as they are coated in South Wales, we can see no traces of 

 marine action in their formation. Some of the gravels and boulder 

 beds near Tiverton are no doubt very largely made up of oldTriassic 

 conglomerates. 



Although this is only a suggestion, it may be interesting to bring 

 it forward, as the evidence of Glacial deposits in the south-west of 

 England has received some little attention. Some years ago Mr. 

 Ormerod ascribed a glacial origin to some " old gravels " in the 

 valley of the Teign. (Geol. Mag. Vol. VI., 1869, p. 40.) Mr. 

 Mackintosh had previously observed what he thought might be 

 glacial scratches on some exposures of Mountain Limestone " near 

 the summit of the hill to the north of Axbridge," Somerset (Geol. 

 Mag. Vol. III. 1866, p. 574) ; and very recently Mr. Perceval has 

 given a note on a Boulder found near Old Cleeve, West Somerset. 

 (Geol. Mag. April, 1872, p. 177). Mr. Moore, too, sees evidences 

 of glaciation around Bath (Bath Nat. Hist, and Antiq. Field Club, 

 March 10, 1869). 



Queen Camel, 2Zrd September, 1872. HoKACE B. WoODWARD. 



