234 ME. CLEMENT REID ON THE [May 1 898, 



19. The Eocene Deposits of Deyon. By Clement Eeid, Esq., 

 E.L.S., E.G.S. (Eead March 23rd, 1898.) 



[Commuaicated by permission of the Director-Greneral of 

 H.M. Geological Survey.] 



In a paper read before this Society in 1896 I gave a short 

 description of the Eocene Deposits of Dorset, and remarked that 

 ' It is noteworthy that the new evidence discovered in the western 

 end of the Hampshire Basin strongly supports the idea that the 

 pipeclays of the Bagshot Series are derived from thQ weathering of 

 the Dartmoor Granite, and that the Bovey Tracey outlier, so like 

 the deposits around Bournemouth, is, as maintained by Mr. Starkie 

 Gardner, of the same age and deposited in the same basin, though 

 in Devon Eocene rest directly on Palaeozoic rocks.' ^ Since these 

 words were written I have had occasion to re-examine the Bovey 

 basin on behalf of the Geological Survey, with the result that light 

 can now be thrown on several obscure points in the geology. As my 

 notes on the Bovey area will complete the general description of the 

 western end of the Hampshire Basin, it will be useful to lay before 

 the Society the results, especially as much detailed work remains 

 to be done and it will be at least 3 years before any general 

 memoir can be published. 



In the year 1875, when Mr. H. B. Woodward was revising the 

 geology of the Bovey basin, and I was engaged in mapping the 

 Greensand and plateau-gravel of Haldon, we were much exercised 

 as to the age and relationship of the deposits, but then had no clear 

 evidence to permit us to go contrary to the received ideas, though 

 Mr. Woodward published a paper in which he gave reasons for 

 reducing the low-lying Greensand outliers to two small and doubtful 

 patches, at Haccombe and Combe. He also suggested that the 

 plateau-gravel of Haldon might be of the same age as the marginal 

 gravels of the Bovey Valley, considering both as ' Drift ' and re- 

 garding the latter — erroneously, I think — as overlying the Tertiary 

 pipeclays.^ Since that time I have mapped the greater part of the 

 Tertiary strata of the Hampshire Basin, and have been drawing 

 nearer and nearer to the Devon area which I examined more than 

 20 years ago. Dorset brought out some quite unexpected resem- 

 blances between the undoubted Bagshot Series and the so-called 

 Miocene of Bovey, placing me in a position to read the new evidence 

 without difficulty as soon as there should arise an opportunity of 

 revisiting the latter area. 



In the summer of 1897 I revisited Devon. Commencing at 



^ ' The Eocene Deposits of Dorset,' Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. Hi (1896) 

 p. 494. 



^ ' IN'otes on the Gravels, Sands, and other Superficial Deposits in the 

 Neighbourhood of Newton Abbot,' Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xxxii (1876) 

 p. 230- 



