A. Champernowne — The Devonians of JSf. and S. Devon. 195 



as there is the slightest misgiving as to the Pictwell Down beds 

 being intercalated between the rocks north and south of them, they 

 cannot, of course, help us in estimating the total thickness exposed. 



In a country which has been so enormously subjected to denu- 

 dation, the existence of such gigantic curves must be extremely 

 difficult of proof, however strong may be one's suspicions, amount- 

 ing to moral certainty. 



We often hear of the simplicity of North Devon. I confess I 

 cannot see it. Faults may be rare, and igneous rocks rarer still. 

 But the instances of contortions with inversion, on a small and 

 medium scale, are almost innumerable, and lead one to suspect the 

 existence of far grander ones. Any evidence of such is not to be 

 put aside without due examination. 



Now, Mr. Etheridge states that the Morte slates cannot possibly 

 be the same as the Pilton, etc., slates thrown off south of the Old 

 Eed ridge that runs into Somersetshire. He considers there is on 

 the north a total absence of the brown sandstones containing Cucullcea 

 and other fossils, which form a debatable ground between the Old 

 Ked and the true Carboniferous slates of Pilton, etc. 



But even if we admit this, it is nothing more than what happens 

 in many other districts. In the slate country, for example, west of 

 the Dartington and Ogwell limestones, there is not a trace worth 

 mentioning of the brown and grey grits and gritty slates (with 

 Pleurodictyum, CJionetes, etc.), which, in Meadfoot Bay, underlie in 

 force the Torquay limestone. 



The Baggy brown sandstones, the Meadfoot and Looe Pleuro- 

 dictyum beds, the Coomhola grits, and the brown grits from Combe 

 Martin Bay to Ilfracombe, with many others (including the Spiri- 

 feren-Sandstein), fall, as I believe, into one and the same general 

 horizon. In most of these " Pleurodictyum " itself occurs. 



The peculiarly glossy character of the Morte slates may, I think, 

 be accounted for by the very perfect cleavage, which is repeatedly 

 cutting the undulated beds at right angles. Throughout the greater 

 part of the Morte slates it is, as Mr. Etheridge says, most difldcult to 

 distinguish the bedding from the cleavage : still, making every 

 allowance for peculiarities, I felt fully convinced that all the rocks 

 from Combe Martin to Woolacombe constitute but one system, and 

 that any division of them into Ilfracombe beds and Morte slates 

 must be purely artificial. 



It may not be so easy at first sight to account for the absence of 

 calcareous matter near the southern side of the slate country which 

 intervenes between the two tracts of red sandstones. There are, 

 however, many considerations which may help to explain it, besides 

 the possibility of thinning out. From Combe Martin westwards the 

 series is excessively contorted, repeating the same beds again and 

 again, with the same general dip. At Broadsand, on the west side of 

 Combe Martin Bay, an inclined limestone V, inclosed in an off- 

 standing rock,^ comes into the country again at the Turnpike road 



1 A photograpli in Frith's Series, No. 5901, shows tMs admirably. In fact much 

 of the details might be noted down on the Six-inch Maps, from the great number 

 of excellent photographs which illustrate this coast. 



