232 H. B. WOODWAKD ON THE SUPERFICIAL DEPOSITS 



posit in ever varying order, and very irregularly accumulated ; such 

 are the pits on "Woolborough Hill, near the base of the Milber Down, 

 and Kingsteignton. Here white clay, coarse gravel, fine and coarse 

 sand occur anywhere and at all horizons in the series. 



The coarse quartzose sands, largely dug on Woolborough Hill, 

 may be traced over the Bovey clays at the Newton station ; and at 

 Courtenay Park I have been informed by Mr. C. D. Blake that the 

 clays were similarly reached beneath them. 



A very variable set of beds occupies the hill- sides between Wool- 

 borough and Longford. One pit, dug in very fine and coarse sand, 

 situated on the ridge just north of Longford, might be thought to be 

 opened in Greensand ; but an adjoining pit, at a little lower level, 

 shows about 25 feet of sand, gravel, and whitish clay, with a 

 wedge of the very fine sand in the middle of it, which wedge is 

 evidently the continuation and termination of the sand worked in 

 the other pit. The gravel is composed mainly of quartz, grit, flint, 

 and chert. 



These old deposits of gravel and sand extend along the borders of 

 the valley from Staple Hill to Kingskerswell, and from Milber Down 

 to Sandy Gate and Ugbrooke Park. They occupy the old Bovey 

 Basin, which did not, when the beds were deposited, extend very 

 far eastwards of Kingsteignton, there being then no opening at the 

 present mouth of the Teign. 



They extend in places from the tops of the hills bordering the 

 basin to the bottom of it, attaining between Haccombe and CofTins- 

 well a height of 540 feet. 



The beds moreover exhibit, in places, at Whitehill, Woolborough, 

 and near Kingskerswell, a very remarkable dip into the valley, — a 

 feature observable in both sands and gravels, and one which tends 

 to connect the several deposits. 



The position occupied by these deposits is thus very dissimilar to 

 that occupied by the Greensand of Haldon and the Blackdown Hills. 



At Staple Hill the beds consist for the most part of sands banked 

 up against the Devonian and Carbonaceous slates, at such a high 

 angle (noticed by Mr. Godwin-Austen) that I was at one time 

 disposed to consider a fault, which affects the older rocks in the 

 neighbourhood, to have been instrumental in producing the very 

 remarkable inclination of the sands *. But this inclination seems 

 evidently one produced during the deposition of the beds, because it 

 is marked at several other points corresponding with the course of 

 the valley, as before mentioned, and it does not always affect the 

 whole of the beds seen in one section, being very irregular, although 

 inclining into the valley f. 



* De la Beche, referring to the deposits of Greensand in the neighbourhood 

 of Newton, and which had been brought to light by Mr. Godwin-Austen, con- 

 cludes that probably a combination of faults and of a depression, produced 

 either previously or subsequently to the deposit of the Greensand, may best 

 explain the phenomena observed (Geol. Report, p. 236). 



t Mr. J. H. Key, in describing the Bovey Clays and Lignites, has pointed out 

 how the clip of these beds increases from the sides towards the centre of the 

 basin (Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. iviii. p. 14). 



