196 A. Champernoione — The Devonians of N, and 8. Devon. 



high above, only to be again doubled out ; neither do I think it 

 makes good its descent to any depth, but is ultimately underlain to 

 the south. ^ 



I next studied the section on the east side of Combe Martin Bay, 

 and saw the String ocephalus grits in situ. I was struck by the 

 identity of the red and variegated sandstones of the Hangman with 

 those of the Smuggler's Cove near Torquay, where Mr. E. B. Tawney 

 found Myalina (^and Natica?) "in beds resembling the Hangman 

 sandstones." 



The Coomhola grit series succeeding is also in every respect 

 identical with the Pleurodictyum beds at Meadfoot. The blackish 

 slates, with cleavage crossing contorted brownish seams, the gritty 

 slates and thin grits, the massive brown grits and the fucoidal (?) 

 remains, are all one and the same from both bays. The boundary- 

 line in West Challacombe Bay is well defined. At Torquay it cor- 

 responds with a combe on the eastern side of the Lincombe Hill. 

 About the identity of these two horizons there can hardly be a doubt. 



But, and I hope Mr. Etheridge will forgive me for being so 

 troublesome, I think the Woolacombe horizon is also the same 

 inverted, and that the Morte slates are the same as those we have 

 been considering, but deposited under deeper-sea conditions, as 

 indicated by the finer sediment. 



The gritty series at Ilfracombe, where I was staying, is far less 

 than its apparent thickness, owing to the great crumpling of the 

 rocks, and corresponding portions on either side of a violently con- 

 torted trough must have been actually brought closer together in 

 horizontal distance than they were before any disturbance had taken 

 place, so that the change is less sudden than it appears.'^ 



Then again, with the country south of Tavistock, — for miles 

 around Buckland Monachorum, and Horrab ridge, there is not a ves- 

 tige of a real grit band in the Devonian slates, which, in every re- 

 spect, are the same as the Morte slates, but most geologists, I appre- 

 hend, would agree that they (the slates of Horrabridge, etc.) are not 

 newer than the Plymouth limestone on the one hand, or the 

 Petherwin beds on the other. 



Supposing the Pickwell Down sandstones to be really above the 

 Morte slates, they, together with the fossiliferous series overlying 

 them, must be wholly unrepresented in South Devon, because {ex 

 hyp.) they cannot be any of the red beds of South Devon mentioned 

 at the outset, all of which can be proved older than the slates and 

 limestones. Every recorded instance of even apparent conformity 

 between the Culm Measures and Devonians, whether slate or lime- 

 stone, brings this conclusion nearer the verge of impossibility, the 

 argument becoming cumulative.' 



1 I do not venture to say that there is but one limestone horizon, but there are 

 certainly not so many as there are bands on the map. 



* This is not a more sti-iking change than that the "Wenlock formation should in 

 one tract consist of the Denbighshire grits, inseparable from its lower portions, in 

 another of the Llantysilio flagstones, and thirdly of the soft calcareous shales and 

 limestones of Silm'ia. 



3 I shaU not now dwell upon this aspect of the subject, viz. the relations of the 

 Culm Measures and Devonians. Mr. H. B. "Woodward and Mr. Eeid (of H. M. Geo- 



