1866.] 



JUKES OLD KED SAITDSTOXE AlfD DBTOIflAIf. 



361 



Fig. 11. — Section across the Valley of Rocks. 



Eed-stained Valley 

 bands, of rocks. 



Eoad. 



Barbrick Mill ott 

 theW. Lyne 



Length of section about 1-^ mile. 



Dark bluish-grey slate with calcareous and quartzose grit bands, the lower or 

 Coomhola-grit part of the Carboniferous Slate. 



Along the coast, and in parts of the interior, the grey rocks are stained exter- 

 nally of a bright red in parallel bands. 



Subsequent explorations along the coast by Woodabay to Heddons 

 Mouth and round by Parracombe, up the glens of the East and West 

 Lyne, and across the country to Simonsbath, only confirmed me in 

 the conviction that the whole, or nearly the whole, of the district 

 consisted of Carboniferous Slate. Whether the upper part of the 

 Old Eed Sandstone rises from beneath it in a narrow antichnal curve, 

 or even more than one, anywhere between the coast and the water- 

 shed of the Exmoor ridge *, or whether the brown sandstones and 

 thick green grits which I saw in the bed of the brook near Spar- 

 hanger, and in a little quarry on Farley Down, were in the Car- 

 boniferous Slate (a part of the Coomhola Grit), I could not exactly 

 decide. 



There was also a band of rock at Lynton, in the Carboniferous 

 Slate, rather different from any I know in Ireland. This is a 

 mass of greenish, close-grained, siliceous grit, with liver-coloured 

 blotches, which is perhaps 200 feet thick, and from its hardness 

 often makes a conspicuous feature. It is shown in the cuttings of 

 the upper part of the road from Lynemouth to Lynton, and the 

 Castle Hotel at the latter place stands on it. In some places there 

 are small beds or still smaller patches of grey clay-slate in it. In 

 the road-cutting it sometimes assumed the appearance of a bright- 

 red grit, but diligent hammering showed that this red colour was an 

 external stain derived from the peroxidation of some ferruginous 

 vein- stuff, which had filtered into all the joints and crevices of the 

 rock. All along the chifs, from Lynton to Heddons Mouth, the grey 

 rocks are similarly stained by one or two parallel bands of bright- 



* Just as I was sending in this paper to the Society, I received the February 

 number of the Journal (No. 85), and in the paper by Mr. Grodwin- Austen on the 

 submerged forest of Porlock, I perceive the rocks about Porlock, and thence to 

 the valley of the East Lyne, described as -'hard, splintery sandstones, grits, and 

 pebble beds, with partings of compact shale, the whole series being of various 

 shades of red," and "very distinct from the grey slaty rocks with calcareous 

 bands" and marine fossils which extend southwards from Lynton. This con- 

 firms the suspicion I had formed that the Old Eed Sandstone, which must lie at 

 no very great depth under the Lynton rocks, rises to the surface towards the 

 east, perhaps in one low anticlinal, perhaps in more than one, the axes of which 

 strike nearly east and west, with a slight rise towards the east. 



