606 PROCEEDITv^GS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY, 



undulating line of country to Huish Down, where they pass con- 

 formably under the red grits and sandstones of the often -mentioned 

 Upper Old Red Sandstone, or Pickwell series, which continues on to 

 Muddiford. 



Returning to Combe Martin and the coast, I examined the slates 

 and limestones along their strike to Newbery, Hagginton Mill, 

 Watermouth, Widmouth, &c., and then in ascending order on their 

 dip to Hagginton Beach and Hill, and Helesborough, and on to 

 Ilfracombe, all of which may be taken as typical fossiliferous locali- 

 ties, and where Mr. Yalpy has collected almost every species occur- 

 ring in the district. 



At Watermouth, which is in a direct line (on the strike) with the 

 main mass of the shales, slates, and lower limestones of Combe 

 Martin, many good sections occur, both in old quarries and on the 

 coast. The shales, slates, and sandstones which alternate here are 

 remarkable for their diversity of character, yet continuing with the 

 same conditions repeated round Widmouth Head to Hagginton 

 Beach. Quartz veins, with lead, I know nowhere else. At San- 

 daby, masses of siliceous rocks, containing StringocepJialus Burtini, 

 Defr., occur ; and Mr. Yalpy has obtained Trimerocephalus Icevis, 

 Miinst., from mottled grey and red shaly rocks which overHe the 

 Stringocephalus grits, associated with Spirifera disjuncta, Sow., 

 Atrypa reticularis, Linn., and its variety A. aspera, Schloth., Rliyn- 

 chonella pleurodon ? Fenestella, &c. The Widmouth series at its lowest 

 part consists of finely laminated thick-bedded sandstones, with Tenta- 

 culites scalaris, Schloth., and casts of other fossils. Above this Ten- 

 taculite-sandstone, succeeds a considerable series of red sandstones, 

 in which no organic remains occur ; an irregular mass of dark lime- 

 stones with corals, especially Favosites cervicornis, Blainv., Stroma- 

 topora, and obscure masses of Cyatliophyllum cce.§piYosMm,Goldf., over- 

 lies the red grits. 



Mr. Yalpy informs me that on this limestone thin shales occur, 

 which are studded with carbonaceous nodules and coprolites offish*. 



Succeeding the Widmouth rocks, and higher in the series are the 

 Eillage and Hagginton beds. I examined the latter only ; but a 

 glance at them convinced me that patient and long study only 

 could enable any one to make out the details of the complicated 

 structure of the rock-masses of Hagginton Beach. The history of 

 the Ilfracombe group is, indeed, written in the coast-series from 

 Combe Martin Bay to Hfracombe, but particularly so in the fine 

 section of slates, sandstone, shaly limestone, and grits of Haggin- 

 ton Beach and the Hill quarries, the impure clayey limestones 

 and quartzose sandstones, &c., on the coast and Hagginton Hill 

 Quarry, having yielded upwards of thirty species, twenty of which 

 belong to the Brachiopoda. 



* Mr. Yalpy has obtained in many places along the coast good evidence of the 

 existence of fish through the remains of bones and coprolites, but no teeth or , 

 scales so as to enable us to determine their genera. None but a local observer 

 can do justice to the difficult and obscure structure of this coast ; and no one has 

 worked it out so patiently as, or with more detail than, Mr. Yalpy. 



