IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF NEWTON ABBOT. 



233 



At Staple Hill, moreover, there are coarse gravelly seams con- 

 taining a few flints, as well as many other fragments of local rocks 

 interstratified in the sands, in one of the large sand-pits now worked 

 at that locality. 



On the western margin of MilberDown, and just inside the lodge- 

 gates on the carriage-road leading to Haccombe, is a small pit 

 exposing fine and rather loamy sands with a few irregular chert 

 blocks, which may very likely represent an outlier of Upper Green- 

 sand. In any case it would only extend along the top of the ridge, 

 and be almost entirely concealed by the coarse gravelly deposits 

 which descend towards the bottom of the valley, and there become 

 intermingled with finer sediments. Another small outlier may be 

 present beneath the gravels worked east of Combe Farm on the old 

 and new high roads between Newton and Exeter. At the base of 

 the gravels there is exposed sand much like the Greensand ; but I 

 could not determine whether it was in any way intercalated (as 

 exactly similar beds are in other places) with the coarse gravel con- 

 taining flint and chert. 



These two patches, however, occur in positions which might 

 connect them with the Greensand of Haldon. 



At Haccombe, indeed, Mr. Godwin- Austen recorded beds of true 

 Greensand, with included layers of chert and whetstone, and 

 covered with characteristic fossils ; but I cannot agree with him in 

 considering that the Greensand ranges over the summits of the hills 

 above Coffinswell, that it passes into the valley a little below Kings- 

 kerswell, and then rises into the opposite hills. Near Combe Farm 

 Mr. Godwin-Austen obtained Exoyyra and Pecten quinquecostatus. 



He has, however, recorded some fossils from localities where I 

 have been unable to identify any Greensand in situ. Thus at 

 Staple Hill he has found Trigonia and Inoceramus concentricus, at 

 Ljmdridge Hill Orbiculce and Orbitolites. 



Although I searched diligently, and had the assistance of one of 

 the fossil-collectors of the Geological Survey, we obtained not the 

 fragment of a fossil in any of the sandy beds. This of course is in 

 itself negative evidence, and of no great value ; for in many sections 

 of undoubted Upper Greensand one may search long and find no 

 reward in the shape of a fossil. 



Looking to the facts that at Staple Hill one of the large pits con- 

 tains one or two bands of gravel yielding flints sparingly, that the 

 beds have that remarkable inclination repeated at AYhitehill and 

 between Newton and Kingskerswell, where the same sands become 

 interbedded with coarse gravel containing flint and chert, and 

 overlie the Bovey beds, I feel no hesitation in considering the few 

 fossils that have been found at these localities to have been rede- 

 posited along with much material derived from the denudation of 

 the Greensand. 



Although these older deposits are roughly confined to the main 

 valley of the Teign and its tributaries west of Kingsteignton, yet, as 

 I have noticed, they extend to a height of 540 feet between Hac- 

 combe and Cofrmswell, and they do not descend into valleys beyond 



