OSMEEOD VALLEY OP THE TEIG^^. 427 



west^ portions of the trunks of two trees were found in upright posi- 

 tions, buried in the superficial contour-gravel, which, similar in its 

 nature to that at the last-named cuttings, rose about 2 feet above their 

 tops and lay beneath them. The largest portion was 5 feet in length, 

 and 6 feet 6 inches in girth; the wood was sound, and the bark was on 

 in places ; the log consisted of the lower part of the butt of the tree 

 with the upper part of the roots, but the top had become worn or de- 

 cayed so as to form a point. The cuttings noticed are carried through 

 spurs projecting from the hill-side ; and the lowest gravel at different 

 cuttings (save that in cutting jSTo. 8) is so similar that these outliers 

 are doubtless the remaining portions of a once continuous bed ; and 

 the same contour-gravel seems to have been deposited over the whole 

 of that hill-side. These lower gravels, except that in ISTo. 8 cutting, 

 have been regarded as " Old Gravels." To the south of No. 6 cut- 

 ting, the Bovey Brook and the Eailway enter upon the Miocene beds 

 of the Bovey Clay. 



Tin-streaming has been carried on along the valleys of the Bovey 

 and its feeders ; a miner's pick was found in granite -gravel (which 

 previously had been regarded as undisturbed) 5 feet below the sur- 

 face, when the contractors were excavating for the foundations of the 

 viaduct at Steward's Hill, about three-quarters of a mile to the south 

 of Moreton. At Wray Barton, near the same place, an iron hook (so 

 soft when found that it could be cut by a knife) was dug up amongst 

 granite-gravel. On the surface, along the district of the Bovey Biver 

 and its feeders, though almost confined within the area of the gra- 

 nite, transported blocks of granite occur in great profusion. 



The position of these gravels shows in some degree the direction 

 of the currents at the time when their deposition took place. Thus in 

 the valley of the Silkhouse Brook, in the Carboniferous rocks to the 

 north of the hills forming the left side of the granitic valleys of the 

 Easter Brook and the Teign, no traces of transported granite in any 

 form occur ; whilst in the eastern parts of the last-named valleys, to 

 the south of that line of hills, both transported blocks of granite and 

 Carboniferous rock appear; and at Stone Farm, near the summit of the 

 ridge, the edges of the beds of shaly Carboniferous rock are deflected, 

 or washed down, in a southerly direction. On the Carboniferous 

 beds to the east of the granite, transported blocks of granite and 

 Carboniferous rocks are found ; and, as seen on the Newton and 

 Moreton Hampstead Railway, fragments of granite lie on the Car- 

 boniferous beds, and the adjoining hill-side, having been transported 

 in a southerly or south-easterly direction. To these examples of the 

 existence of a general current in a south-easterly direction, the gra- 

 vel formed of elvan and Carboniferous rock at Biddy Hill is one 

 exception : the nearest Carboniferous rocks to that place in a north- 

 erly direction are at Hunt's Tor, distant about six miles ; and had this 

 gravel been derived thence, fragments would probably have been 

 deposited in the intervening country ; such, however, is not the case ; 

 and as the fragments are angular and the rock soft, it is probable 

 that they were derived from the Carboniferous beds to the south- 

 west, on the opposite side of the valley. The substitution, at No. 8 



VOL. XXIII. PART I. 2 G 



