Vol. 60.] THE VALLEY OF THE TEIGN. 321 



and then bends southward to pursue a course which brings it 

 between the outermost granitic ridge on the one hand, and the 

 Haldon Hills on the other hand. Its valley here is broad and 

 open. 



Xear Chudleigh Knighton the Teign enters the plain of the 

 Bovey Eocene deposits, and flows over this to Xewton Abbot, 

 where it receives the waters of the Bovey and the Lemmon : but, 

 instead of continuing to run southward into Tor Bay, as the present 

 features of the country would lead everyone to expect that it would 

 have done, it turns abruptly to the east, and enters the gap in which 

 its estuary now lies. 



Such are the facts which have to be explained : and the problem 

 is certainly not to be solved from a mere study of maps, nor from a 

 cursory examination of the physical features of the district. It 

 does not take long to perceive that the gap of the Teign estuary is 

 very probably part of an ancient river-valley, excavated before the 

 present physical features of the surrounding country had been 

 developed. It may also be surmised that such a transverse cut 

 is not likely to have been made by the Teign, if that river has 

 always pursued its present course : but it is not so easy to 

 determine what river or rivers can have made the valley of the 

 Teign estuary, or how the modern Teign came to take the erratic 

 course above described. The problem is also complicated by the 

 local crust-movement which produced the Bovey Basin, although, as 

 will be seen in the sequel, I do not think that the synclinal trough 

 of this basin is so local as it appears to be. 



This problem of the Teign Valley has interested mauy local 

 geologists and observers, but has not yet received what appears to 

 me a satisfactory explanation. 



In 1867 G. W. Ormerod noticed some of the peculiarities of the 

 Teign Valley in the pages of this Journal * ; he recorded the 

 presence of ancient gravels with granite-pebbles along the upper 

 valley, and for a short distance within the gorge of the Teign 

 (as far as Wootton Castle above Clifford Bridge), and he com- 

 mented on the absence of any such ' old gravels ' along the further 

 course of the river. His explanation of the facts was that the 

 whole gorge of the Teign was of comparatively-recent formation, 

 and that the original course of the river was through the gap in 

 the rim of the Chagford Basin, which I have already mentioned. 

 His theory was, therefore, that the present valley of the Wray 

 Brook (see fig. 1, p. 320) is the ancient valley of the Teign, and 

 that the gorge of the Teign was opened subsequently by some 

 ' disruption of the Carboniferous rocks since the gravels were 

 deposited.' The idea of such a disruption is not in accord with 

 modern methods of interpretation ; and Ormerod's theory can 

 hardly be adopted now, because if the river ever followed such 

 a course as he suggested, one cannot see any reason why it should 



1 Quart. Jouru. Geol. Soc. vol. xxiii (1867) p. 418. 



