Geology of the South-east of Devonshire. 483 



description beyond the statement whether any district under consideration presents 

 such appearances, and if so, their degree of prevalence and general directions. 



The whole of the county of Devon may be described as an assemblage of frag- 

 ments of deposits, probably once continuous : it does not, that 1 am aware, present 

 many of those vast dislocations which geologists have observed in other parts of the 

 world, or even in this country, but the general amount of disturbance is extraor- 

 dinary, — every quarry, every range of cliff, every artificial cutting for a road, or 

 excavation for a dweUing-house, offering instances in endless succession. The 

 vicinity of Dawlish may serve as an example (PI. XLII. fig. 5.) ; but as to describe 

 in detail the faults of such a district would be an endless task, the following obser- 

 vations relate more particularly to the connexion of faults, where such is possible, 

 with the phaenomena of those disturbing operations which successively placed the 

 various rocks in the conditions and situations in which we now find them. 



The surface of the new red sandstone district is remarkable for its undulations and deep combes. 

 Many of these, it will be found, as exposed in the deep cuttings on each side of Dawlish, are not the 

 result of mere excavation, but of elevation or depression ; the angular inequalities, which must, in the 

 first instance, have been produced, having been subsequently modified, as well as the hollows filled in 

 part with the coarser debris, whereby an undulating outline resulted ; and the upper surface never 

 indicated the disturbance which can be traced beneath. (PI. XLII. fig. 5.) At Watcombe, however, 

 there is a fault which has evidently been produced since the rounding process was completed over the 

 rest of the neighbouring district. The scenery at this place may be briefly described as the result of 

 the subsidence of a tract half a mile in length, and less than a quarter in breadth, to much below its 

 former level ; leaving an open space bounded by vertical cliffs, one of which is of great height. The 

 direction of the fault, from the coast inland, is due east and west, the amount of dislocation regularly 

 diminishing ; but soundings prove that it is continued with a like course beneath the sea. Should this spot 

 ever be submerged, the angular summits of the cliffs would be soon removed ; the larger materials would 

 be collected below, in the same way as we now find them in the Dawlish valley, and on its next ex- 

 posure as dry land, it would be in appearance a true valley of denudation, corresponding in every 

 particular with those of the Sid, Otter, &c. The phsenomena at Watcombe are just such as have recently 

 been produced at Seton, except that, at the former, the amount of dislocation has been greater. The cause 

 assigned for the Seton subsidence does not seem to be supported by concurrent evidence, even should it 

 be deemed adequate ; and, with respect to Watcombe, it is altogether inapplicable ; whilst the east and 

 west direction common to both, and other considerations, seem to point to some deeper-seated cause. 



It may also be suggested, whether the arched strata at Petit Tor (PI. XLII. fig. 1.), and the east and 

 west vertical cliffs, may not have been produced by the same disturbance whicli caused the Watcombe 

 fault. At the junction of the shales and limestone at Petit Tor, and at the level of the beach, good in- 

 stances may be seen of the great pressure the beds experienced when the disturbance took place. 



If the speculation as to the conditions under which the Bovey carbonaceous beds 

 were formed be correct, and we couple with this belief the fact of several marine 

 and estuary deposits having been raised, we must admit that, within a compara- 

 tively recent period, the surface of this part of England was placed at nearly its exist- 

 ing level, then at one much lower, and that it has again been raised to its present 



