SEETES OF THE DEVON COAST-SECTION. 153 



field's Point) the Lower Keuper series is recognized again. This 

 is their last appearance in the coast-section as we work west. The 

 very unequal weathering of these Bunter beds, owing in part to 

 their being slightly but very unequally calcareous in places, has 

 given to the cliffs and the outstanding " stacks " a very weird and 

 grotesque appearance all along to Otterton Point *. 



The Ottee Mouth and Budleigh Salteeton. 



On the east side of the mouth of the Otter the deeply eroded 

 Bunter cliffs are well worthy of study. Here we seem to come 

 across the first traces of reconstructed materials from the great 

 breccia series which occupies such a large extent of country further 

 to the west and south. An irregular band of breccia t occurs inter- 

 calated with the sandstones, just above high-water mark. I searched 

 the exposed portion of this minutely, but failed to find more than 

 one or two fragments sufficiently rounded to be called pebbles; 

 nearly all the fragments appeared to be slightly subangular. Among 

 them I noted fragments of slate slightly cleaved (such as occurs 

 around the granite on Dartmoor), vein-quartz, trap (various), reddish 

 granite (the felspar slightly kaolinized), an older grit containing 

 felspathic fragments, quartzite (dark grey, red, and yellow). The 

 few pebbles which formed the exceptions to the rule were composed 

 of either trap, quartz, or quartzite. A second breccia occurs here- 

 abouts, in which all the contained fragments are of hard red marl. 

 The matrix of both these breccias is fairly hard, owing to cal- 

 careous cementation. 



On following the river escarpment inland for about a mile, this 

 breccia-bed is met with frequently ; and in some places I saw over- 

 lying it a fairly indurated sandstone, with pebbles and subangular 

 fragments scattered rather freely through it, as so often happens in 

 beds of the Middle Bunter. These beds are to be identified on the 

 other side of the mouth of the Otter at the eastern end of the 

 Esplanade, where 12 feet (vertical) of them are exposed, with the 

 same breccia at their base, lying on an eroded surface of more 

 homogeneous sandstone, a capital instance of " contemporaneous 

 erosion." The same beds appear again (evidently on the same 

 horizon by the dip) about 100 feet above the principal pebble-bed, 

 west of the EoUe Hotel (see infra). 



A striking feature on both sides of the Otter is the occurrence of 

 hard, liver-coloured, calcareous sandstone, in regular layers several 

 inches thick, while the same material occurs as (apparently) infiUings 

 of curious irregular tubes in the sand rock, in such a manner as to 

 suggest the ramifications of roots of trees in a soil, and the possible 

 traces here of a Triassic " submerged forest." 



In all the sections in which I have identified these coarse current- 



* It is possible that these rocks on the cliff-face have undergone some ' hyper- 

 phoric' change, from the long-continued action of the spray of the sea. 



t These I take to be the " Conglomeratic beds " of Mr. Ussher, loc. cit. 

 p. 380. 



Q. J. G. S. No. 174. M 



