484 Mr. Austen on the 



position. That the amount of oscillation has been unequal on different parts of the 

 coast is most probable ; but the greatest vertical movement did not much exceed 

 seventy feet, and we may perhaps infer that such tracts as the ancient forest beneath 

 Torbay, now permanently submerged, are portions which have not regained their 

 former levels. 



The whole of the west of England has experienced similar unequal movements, 

 the amount of elevation increasing from east to west. Thus, the raised beds of the 

 Dart (Staverton) are much above the level of those of the Exe ; and still further 

 west, as in Cornwall, they attain a much greater altitude ; and indeed along the 

 whole western side of Great Britain, the recent marine beds have their highest 

 range. 



The periods of these three distinct relative positions of the land with respect to 

 the sea-level (which we must assume to have been constant) may be very distant 

 from any historical times, but the forms of animal life were such as apparently have 

 occupied this country only a few centuries back ; and though the marine species 

 contained in the raised marine beds seem to be few, which is but a negative fact, 

 yet they afford no indication of a higher temperature than the present, and possibly 

 the inference which I ventured to deduce in the account of these deposits may be 

 ultimately established. 



Intimately connected with this particular period, and intermediate between two 

 distant faunas, are the marked effects of water moving in a definite direction, 

 carrying along with it the loose surface materials, and filling the open fissures and 

 cavities with debris. The traces of this action occur only at inconsiderable heights. 



Antecedent to this, was a period when the country had a configuration exactly 

 similar to the existing one, but was inhabited by races of animals which indicate a 

 more elevated temperature than the present. Of the vegetation of this period, 

 which we must suppose to have been different from that of the submerged forest of 

 Torbay, not the slightest vestige has yet been found, though the requirements of 

 the large Pachyderms would imply that it must have been abundant. 



We know that during the period of those large Mammalia the fissures in the lime- 

 stone rocks were open chasms : had they existed in that state whilst the denuding 

 process was in action, and which laid bare the very beds traversed by the fissures, 

 the latter must have certainly been filled with red sandstone debris ; but, from the 

 animal remains contained in the breccias, we learn that the chasms are of later 

 origin, and were filled after the whole country had been in the condition of dry 

 land for a long period. If we take the fissures of the Chudleigh country as a guide, 

 we find that in every instance they have been opened along the lines of joints in the 

 lime rocks : thus, the great mass of debris cemented by calcareous matter, which 

 crosses the quarry at Chudleigh rock, like a huge wall of coarse masonry, is the 



