AND THE MIDLAND AND WESTEEN COtTNTIES. 63 



porphyrite, quartz, &c. The whole mass has a rude stratification, 

 and the blocks and pebbles are generally subangular and embedded 

 in a red sandy paste. Sections are also shown by the Teigumouth 

 roadside, one of which, at a bend near Higher Gable, exhibits un- 

 consolidated breccia, absolutely indistinguishable from the Lower 

 Permian breccia of Shropshire or Worcestershire as it occurs in some 

 places. The sections above described are continued along the coast 

 above Teignmouih and in the railway- cuttings, but need not be 

 here further referred to, as having been already so well and so often 

 described. The whole series must be of great thickness, perhaps 

 approaching 1000 feet — although the dip is generally slight. 



As regards their geological position, there can be no doubt that 

 they are representatives of the Lower Permian stage. To this 

 opinion one is impelled both by their remarkable resemblance to the 

 beds of that age in Salop, Worcester, and Warwickshire ; and also 

 by their position, lying as they do directly on the Palaeozoic rocks 

 in a highly discordant position, and at the' base of the whole series 

 of red strata of Devonshire. The conditions which obtained in the 

 border districts, north of the old Palaeozoic ridge, appear to have 

 been reproduced in the Devonshire area, along the borders of the 

 old land formed of Carboniferous, Devonian, and older rocks, which 

 had been disturbed and eroded at the close of the Carboniferous 

 epoch, and from the waste of which these brecciated masses were 

 constructed. 



I may add that there is nothing in the appearance of this breccia 

 at all resembling the Eunter Sandstone either of Central England or 

 of Germany. On the other hand, it is strikingly like the Lower 

 Permian breccia of both countries.^ 



III. The Teiassic Beds (Bunter Series). 



On crossing to the eastern side of the estuary of the Exe we come 

 upon an entirely diff"erent series of red beds admittedly newer than 

 those of the western shore of this estuary, with a general easterly 

 dip and occasionallj^ dislocated by small faults ; — not so great as 

 to disarrange the order of succession, or sucl^ as to render the rela- 

 tions of the beds obscure. The lowest visible beds of this series 

 occur at Exmouth, and are laid open in the little section forming 

 the old sea-clifts before the last general elevation of the sea-bed. 

 These consist of soft, bright, red sandstone with oblique lamination, 

 occasionally streaked with white and parted by marly bands. 

 Above this sandstone comes a thick deposit of purple marl with bands 

 of soft white sandstone, and this again is succeeded by soft bright- 



^ The description of Sir R. I. Murchison for the breccia of the Kothe-todte- 

 liegende near Eisenach might be applied to those of Devonshire : — • These 

 great bands, often of vast thickness, ought, strictly speaking, to be termed 

 breccias. . . . For, whatever be the included material, whether quartz -rock, mica- 

 schist, old porphyry, granite, or greywacke slate, the fragments are usually 

 angular ; none of them presenting the aspect of having been roUed on a beach 

 or rounded by the action of the waves.' Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xi. (1855) 

 p. 42L 



