ETHERIDGE DEVOXIAIf ROCKS AND FOSSILS. 597 



the beds of gritty slates are much disturbed, and dip at various 

 angles, as well as being arched, rolled, or folded ; but the talus on 

 the steep slopes of the cliff prevents any accurate observation from 

 being made as to the precise place where any junction of the slates 

 and red sandstones occurs here, and any direct evidence from being 

 obtained as to the cause of the disturbance ; here commence the 

 lowest slates of the Devonian series, which contain Sj^irifera Icevi- 

 costa, Yalenc. (S. ostiolata, Phill.), Ortliis arcuata, Phill., and what I 

 believe to be masses of Steganodicti/um in the indurated slates, the 

 two former being abundantly distributed. Large fallen blocks of 

 grey indurated gritty calcareo-siliceous slates, with the planes of bed- 

 ding full of fossils, occur on the shore on the east side of the Lynn, or 

 between Lynmouth and the Foreland ; it was, however, impossible 

 to obtain specimens, o^iug to the extreme indui'ation of the beds ; but 

 nests of Favosites cervicornis, Fencstella aniiqua, and Orthis arcuata 

 were readily detected. These beds on the east side of the river appear 

 again on the west, where they dip at a low angle to the south, and 

 also constitute the base of the succeeding mass of the Lower Devo- 

 nian grey gritty slates which rise from the sea to the summit of the 

 Valley of Rocks ; these lower slates, &c., are about 1500 feet thick. 

 A gentle dip and undulation enable us to trace them to Lee and 

 Woodabay, where they dip south from 15° to 20°, and are then confor- 

 mably overlain by a series of thick red grits and sandstones (the 

 Hangman Grits, &c.). 



The summit of the steep escarpment above the Devil's Cheese- 

 ring is also composed of these red, grey, and pale -yellow grits and 

 sandstones, which constitute the tableland above Lynton. These 

 are a second series of red sandstone resembling both the lower at the 

 Foreland, and the higher at Pickwell Down ; and their conformable 

 junction is well seen at Woodabay, resting upon the uppermost 

 beds of the fossiliferous Lynton slates, which insensibly pass up 

 into them ; these red beds are not, in my opinion, a repeated series, 

 or a repetition of the Foreland and Countesbury grits, caused by 

 the anticlinal of the Lynn valley, but a higher and succeeding series 

 of red sandstones, on which again rest the Middle or Combe Martin 

 and Ilfracombe series south of the Hangman and stretching all 

 across i^orth Devon. The fossils occurring at Woodabay, as at Lee 

 and the Valley of Rocks, are characteristic of these Lynton or Lower 

 Devonian slates, and are the following: — FenesteJJa antiqua,Megalodon 

 cucullatum, Orthis arcuata, Orthis granulosa, Spirifera loivicosta, 

 Pleurotomaria asjpera, BellerOj[)hon glohatus, Orthoceratites, with Ten- 

 tacuUtes and numerous casts and remains of Crinoidea. 



1^0 one can fail to distinguish this division of the Devonian series, 

 and the stratigraphical place it occupies ; and it possesses so marked 

 a marine fauna, that it shows a complete, if not an absolute, change 

 frcm that of the Silurian series, which, I believe, it succeeds in 

 time. 



The gorges of both the east and west Lynns show the same succes- 

 sion of beds and physical changes on the line of dip ; and the road- as 

 well as the river-sections prove the position, flattening, and southern 



