IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OE NEWTON ABBOT. 231 



account of these deposits has been given; but in 1867, in an 

 address delivered to the Devonshire Association at Barnstaple, 

 Mr. Pengelly observed that it may be doubted whether all the 

 localities so represented in the maps of the Geological Survey are 

 really true Greensand localities. 



While engaged in carrying on the Geological Survey in the 

 neighbourhood of Newton Abbot (1874-75) for the new edition of 

 Sheet 22, I was for some time sorely perplexed with the various 

 sands and gravels met with. To give one instance : — certain sandy 

 beds opened up in front of my own house were at the first glance 

 thought to be Triassic ; a short examination led me to class them 

 doubtfully as Greensand ; further observation caused me to regard 

 them as possibly Bovey beds ; and before I left the country 1 was 

 persuaded that they were Drifts, using this last term in its con- 

 veniently indefinite sense. 



The fact is, the sections vary very much in detail. There is 

 sand, gravel, clay, and fine sandy clay, sometimes dovetailing one 

 into the other, but sometimes forming individually the entire mass 

 of the open sectious ; so that the geologist familiar with the Green- 

 sand of Haldon and the Blackdown Hills may recognize some beds 

 similar in character to that deposit ; and if he be acquainted with 

 the sandy strata of the Bovey formation, he may, in isolated sec- 

 tions, be puzzled to discriminate between the two. 



The examination and comparison of the numerous fine sections, 

 and, above all, the tracing of the beds on the ground, prove the 

 conuexion of deposits that might otherwise be considered distinct, 

 and have led me to class all the sands and gravels in the neighbour- 

 hood of Newton Abbot, with one or, at most, two exceptions, as cer- 

 tainly of an age posterior to the Bovey beds. 



Beds regarded as Upper Greensand have been mapped on Wool- 

 borough Hill and Milber Down, at White Hill, Staple Hill, and near 

 Kingsteignton. At each of these localities there are beds of sand that, 

 on lithological grounds, might be identified with the lower beds of 

 the Greensand series ; but, except at the very summit of Milber 

 Down, and perhaps also near Coombe Farm, north of Sandy Gate, 

 there is evidence for connecting them with the coarse gravels con- 

 taining fragments of Greensand chert and Chalk flint, thus indi- 

 cating their post-Cretaceous age; while, again, the fact that in 

 places the gravels and sands overlie the clays of the Bovey formation 

 at once indicates their age to be still more recent. 



The sands are generally composed of quartz, sometimes rounded, 

 sometimes angular ; and they graduate into gravel or shingle, com- 

 posed of pebbles of quartz, grit, &c. ; and these pass into or become 

 interstratified with very coarse gravel-beds, composed of large 

 blocks and pebbles of grit and chert, flint and quartz. All the 

 fragments are apparently of local derivation. 



Some sections show only sand, as at Whitehill and in the Torquay 

 road at Newton Abbot ; others display only gravel, coarse, rolled and 

 angular, as shown in several pits on the summit of Milber Down. 

 Again, some of the largest pits exhibit all the different kinds of de- 



