282 Prof. Sedgwick and Mr. Murchison 



1 . Phenomena on the Coast and in the Neighbourhood. 



We have stated that the southern end of the raised beach is lost under the 

 blown sand of Saunton. This blown sand occupies a wide area of undulating 

 hillocks (partially covered with bent-grass), which choak the northern side of 

 the bay; the united rivers. Taw and Torridge, finding their course through 

 them to the sea over bars of sand, which render the access to the ports of 

 Bideford and Barnstaple very difficult. On the southern side of the bay these 

 sand-hills disappear ; but, between the town of Appledore and the sea-shore, 

 is a very remarkable and elevated straight ledge of rounded bowlders, called 

 the "Popple," or pebble bank ; which, although quite analogous to the well- 

 known " Chisel Bank," has not been noticed in the map of the Ordnance 

 Survey. It rises to a height of about five feet above the high-water mark of 

 spring tides, is about one mile and a quarter long, and about 15 to 20 paces 

 wide upon its summit, with shelving slopes on each side, giving it a broad and 

 firm base. It rises from 10 to 12 feet above the sands. The large rolled and 

 rounded blocks, mixed with smaller gravel and pebbles, consist exclusively of 

 a hard, grey and slightly mottled sandstone, of which there is a vast abundance 

 on the reefs and headlands between this spot and Clovelly, and which, with 

 the other strata around Bideford, we consider to belong to rocks of the age of 

 the coal measures. 



This pebble bank, stretching from Rocks Nose northward towards the 

 mouth of the estuary, shelters the marsh land behind it from the elements ; 

 and hence it is, that a broad and low alluvial flat, interposed between it and 

 the town of Appledore, is covered with grass, and exempted from the de- 

 structive sweep of the blown sand, which has overspread the opposite side of 

 the bay. Although it at first seemed difficult to account for the origin of this 

 remarkable ridge of gravel, it appeared to be explained by the raised beach 

 on the northern side of the bay : for we could not avoid inferring, that this 

 pebble bank was one of the indications of a considerable rise of the land. In 

 a former condition of things, when the neighbouring coast was at a lower 

 level, the materials of the present shingle bank might have existed as a natural 

 marine accumulation, in the form of a reef; or they may have gradually- 

 assumed their present form, while the sea and land were changing their rela- 

 tive level. Such a change would inevitably bring successive parts of the 

 coast within the destructive operations of the surf, and naturally produce 

 accumulations of water-worn materials. At all events, the '' Popple Bank" 

 appears to us not accounted for by the actual configuration of the coast and 

 the ordinary action of the sea. 



