10 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [NoV. 20, 



towards Kingskerswell and Torquay, and on the other, towards the 

 Bovey and Knighton Heaths, where the deposit attains its greatest 

 elevation, 151 feet above the mean level of the sea ; farther north it 

 sinks again abruptly, before reaching the slate -hills of Bovey- 

 Tracey, into the valley occupied by the Bovey Pottery. The excep- 

 tions to the generally flat appearance of the lower portion of the 

 deposit occur where the hills forming the border-line of the basin 

 are composed of loose material, when it would appear as if portions 

 had been washed into the depression over the deposit, breaking the 

 general level ; this is observed at Stover, at Sandy Gate, and below 

 Baker's Hill. 



For more than a hundred years the Bovey basin has been worked 

 for pipe and potter's clay, sending off annually large quantities from 

 its shipping port, Teignmouth, to aU the principal sea-ports of the 

 United Kingdom. In the northern part of the basin, near Bovey- 

 Tracej, an extensive pottery has been established, excavating the 

 greater part of its fuel for many years from the adjoining beds of 

 brown-coal or lignite ; although at present, I believe, from exhaus- 

 tion of the beds near the surface, sea-bonie coal is used to a consider- 

 able extent. 



In penetrating beneath the soil of this deposit in any part, the 

 borer meets with nothing harder than gravel or beds of lignite, with 

 the exception of an occasional boulder near the surface ; the whole 

 basin being fiUed up vdth loose material, consisting of various kinds 

 of clay, silt, sand, lignite, and gravel, deposited in beds, with con- 

 siderable regularity. At one place it has been bored to a depth of 

 200 feet, and in many places 130 to 150 feet, without meeting rock. 



The strata of the Bovey Basin. — Commencing on Knighton Heath, 

 and running down the eastern side of the basin, are three principal 

 parallel beds of clay (used in commerce), resting on, separated, and 

 covered by other parallel beds of muddy clay, silt, sand, and gravel, 

 all having a western inclination or dip*. South of the Newton 

 Railway Station the beds of fine clay thin out to a mere trace, but 

 occur again at the Decoy, as a well-defined and regular deposit ; but 

 here the dip is changed from the west to the east, the pipe-clay now 

 being found to the west, and the potter's clay, accompanied by seams 

 of lignite, to the east. Further south, the beds of fine clay thin out 

 again, still keeping their eastern inclination ; become again well 

 defined at Aller, especially as regards the potter's clay and lignite 

 (the pipe- clay having here lost its distinctive qualities, being mixed 

 up with sand and stained with ochreous matters) ; and onwards in 

 the valley leading to Torquay traces of the clay may be found as far 

 as the Atmospheric Engine-house, above the Torr Eailway Station. 



As regards the strike of the strata on the western side of the 

 deposit (its central and upper portion), not so much is known ; no 



* On the plan of the Bovey basin presented to the Society (not published) the 

 bed to the east, marked red, is the pipe-clay (called locally the " white body"), 

 the two western beds, marked green, potter's clay (or tlie " black body "), and 

 tlie parallel beds of coarse clay, sand, &c., marked brown. A bed of lignite, in 

 some places well defined, but in others forming merely a trace, accompanies the 

 middle bed of potter's clay — the lignite marked black in the plan. 



