ROCKS OF SOMERSET AND DEVON. 389 



near Broadclist, the Trias assumes the character of a brown gravelly- 

 mass containing numerous large grit boulders, with an earthy- 

 matrix and very feeble evidence of stratification. In all the varieties 

 of breccia previously alluded to, local beds and impersistent bands 

 of sand and sandstone may occur at any horizon. 



The next (and, so far as I am aware, the final) variation this division 

 assumes is not present on the coast, and only very locally observable 

 inland, viz. brecciated loam and clay and intercalated clays and 

 coarse sand finely brecciated. Exeter and the Crediton valley, and 

 between Silverton and Bradninch, are the only localities in which I 

 can speak with certainty of its occurrence. 



The railway-cutting near Queen's-street Station, Exeter, shows 

 red loamy clay, brecciated with shale-fragments, and containing a 

 few even red-sandstone beds intercalated. Culm-shales are ob- 

 servable cropping out in one place at the base of the cutting ; so that 

 either there is a fault between Queen's-street and the Docks, where 

 breccias somewhat resembling those of Dawlish occur at a much 

 lower level, or the floor of the older rocks on which the Triassic beds 

 were deposited is exceedingly uneven. However, as the mapping of 

 Exeter is not quite completed, the question is open to settlement. 



In St. Sidwell's parish, Exeter, brecciated loamy clay (fragments 

 of culm-shales), with beds of red clay and loamy clay, occasionally 

 brecciated, are shown. In places north of Newton St. Cyres, near 

 Whipton, and near Polestow, north-east of Exeter, dark-red clay, 

 mottled grey in the latter place, and in parts thickly brecciated with 

 shale- fragments, occurs. 



South of Thorverton and east of Crediton the beds are very vari- 

 able, showing dark-red loamy clay, bands of coarse reddish-brown 

 brecciated sand with lines of grey sandy loam, coarse dark-red sand 

 and sandy loam, reddish-brown and red laminated sand, breccia of 

 shale, igneous and grit-fragments in sand and loam, and breccia of 

 small grit, igneous and quartz-fragments. 



No definite position can be assigned to these clay-beds in the 

 lowest division, as they probably locally replace the other lithological 

 constituents. 



We have now glanced at the lowest division of the Devon and 

 West Somerset Trias, in itself exhibiting affinities to each and every 

 other member of the group, — the clay-beds to the Upper and Lower 

 Marls, the sandstones to Upper Sandstones, and the breccio-conglo- 

 merates to the Conglomerates, whilst the gravelly breccias exhibit 

 some points of similarity to the Pebble-beds. We find the greatest 

 and most complete development of this division exhibited in the 

 coast of Devon, from Exmouth to Torquay and Paignton, in the 

 valleys of Crediton and Tiverton, and north of the great fault north 

 of Milverton. In the intervening districts we have pointed out the 

 probability of some of the unrepresented varieties being concealed 

 by the one superficially developed, and, by mentioning the occurrence 

 of sandstones at the top of the division about Exeter and Broadclist 

 and at apparently the bottom, from Wiveliscombe and Bathealton 

 northwards, shown the possibility of the absent breccias being 



