ETHEEIDGE DEVONIAN ROCKS AND FOSSILS. 571 



were ably substantiated by Mr. Lonsdale, by his carefiil investiga- 

 tion of the fossils, to which he assigned an intermediate and distinct 

 position (to the corals, &c.), showing, with the authors of that memoir, 

 that the stratified rock-masses of that extensive area and their 

 fossil contents hold a position, physically and palaeontologically, 

 between the great mass of the Silurian deposits, abeady definitely 

 determined, and those of the Carboniferous series succeeding them, 

 which are developed on a grand and extensive scale in the culm- 

 trough that occupies the region between Barnstaple, in Xorth Devon, 

 on the north, and Brocastle and Petherwin, in Xorth Cornwall, on 

 the south. 



1836. Sedgivich and Murchison. — These authors, in a communi- 

 cation to the British Association*, were the first to accurately de- 

 termine the place of the carbonaceous deposits of Xorth and Central 

 Devon, which had previously been classed with the lowest portions 

 of the Grauwacke ; they described the structure of the county in 

 ascending order, and divided the whole series into five groups ; they, 

 however, then misunderstood the group of rocks that repose upon the 

 Morte slates and sandstones in Xorth Devon, referring the Upper 

 Devonian or Barnstaple series to the Silurian system, and placing 

 the Carboniferous upon them, which in stratigraphical succession was 

 correct, the underlying group being refeiTed to a wrong age. In 

 1839 this error was corrected f. 



1837. Williams, Rev. D., F.G.S.t—-^ section accompanies this 

 paper, giving the author's views of the general succession of the 

 rock-masses of West Somerset and Xorth Devon, in which he 

 places the Cannington-Park Limestone at the base, and below the 

 Foreland and Dunkery sandstones, and Lynton slates ; he divides 

 the rocks into nine groups in ascending order — the carbonaceous 

 strata and their flora being erroneously placed below the Old Red 

 Sandstone and the Carboniferous Limestone. 



1837. Austen. — R. Godwin-Austen, Esq., in a masterly paper 

 "On the Geology of the South-east of Devonshii'e"§, discussed the 

 structure of the rock-masses of that area generally, and, after de- 

 scribing the succession of the Tertiary deposits and Secondary forma- 

 tions, also noticed the culmiferous or Carboniferous series, its position 

 and succession, and then remarked upon the Transition System 

 (then so caUed), believing that the culm-measures rested unconform- 

 ably upon them. He divided this series into five groups, also no- 

 ticing the igneous and trap rocks. 



1838. Weaver. — Thomas Weaver, Esq., communicated to the Geo- 

 logical Society an important paper on the " Geological Relations of 

 North Devon" II, in which he describes the structure of that area, 

 from Bideford, on the south, to the Foreland, east of Lynton, on the 



* Report, 1836. 



t " On some fossil wood, &c., low down in the Grauwacke of Devon, &c." 

 J I do not purpose commenting upon the views held by any of the older 

 authors in this notice of the History of the Devonian Rocks. 

 § Proc. Geol. Soc. vol. ii. 1833-38, p. 584. 

 II Proc. Geol. Soc. 1838, vol. ii. p. 589. 



