12 



D. PIDGEOX ON EECENT DISCOTEEIES 



the clays in which the forest is rooted are either coeval with, 

 or younger than, the bronze age in Britain. 



The map, fig. 1, exhibits that part of Torbay which is occupied 

 by Goodrington, Paignton, and Preston Sands, upon the first and 

 last of which the finds which are about to be described were made. 

 Eeferring, in the first place, to Preston Sands, these fringe a fiat 

 marshy valley, which, excavated in Triassic sandstones and conglo- 

 merates, and falling seaward with an extremely gentle slope, 

 extends from Redclifi'e Towers at A to Preston Lane at B (fig. 1). 



The gales of December 1883 and Pebruary 1884 stripped nearly 

 all the shingle off the upper half of the tidal strand between these 

 two points, A & B, exposing the outcrops shown upon the plan, 

 fig." 2. The forest-clay, K, was then seen to extend in a continuous 



Pig. 2. — Plaii of Outcrops ohserved on Preston Sands (A to B on 

 fig. 1), December 1883 to February 1884. (Scale 340 feet to 

 1 inch.) 





sheet of no great thickness from Redclifi'e Towers to Preston Lane, 

 while its seaward edge, instead of extending beyond low-water 

 mark, as in the neighbouring inlets of Goodiington, Torre Abbey, 

 Paignton, and Broad Sands, has been truncated by the action of the 

 sea and is now confined to the limits shown upon the plan. 



Inland the clay bed forms a flat basin, whose northern lip, rising 

 with the fiank of the valley, thins out to nothing at B, about seven 

 feet above high-water mark, while its southern lip has been denuded, 

 together vrith the Trias rock upon which it rests, to the level of the 

 sea. Of the inland lip of this basin more hereafter. 



The clay reposes directly upon the Trias at A (figs. 1 & 2), while, 

 further north, it lies upon a somewhat remarkable breccia or " head " 

 (L, fig. 2), which caps the Trias conformably from about the point C 

 for a considerable distance northwards of Preston Lane. This breccia, 

 which, together with the forest- clay underlying Preston Sands, has 

 been minutely described by Mr. Pengelly*, consists of unstratified, 

 angular, and loosely aggregated stones, packed, without order or 

 arrangement, in a clayey matrix. The stones have nearly all been 

 derived from a neighbouring hill of Devonian sandstone, whence 



* Trans. Dev. Assoc, for 1878. 



