OF THE DEVOJf COAST-SECTIOIf. 75 



some parts of Germany, e. g. in Eastern Thuringia and on the south- 

 east of the Elack Forest.^ 



[It may be well to draw attention here to a recent paper ^ by 

 Dr. H. B. Geinitz, of Dresden, on the Permian fauna (represented by 

 16 species) and the flora (3 species) found in a " series of rocks con- 

 sisting for the most part of red shaly marls of various colours, with 

 which red, often very ferruginous, sandstones and conglomerates, 

 and even thin layers and nodules {Knollen) of dolomitic limestone, 

 are interstratified (wechseln). " ^ On these fossil remains the 

 author remarks : " The assemblage of the fossil remains refers 

 this group of variegated marls {der bunten Mergel) to the Upper 

 Zechstein or ' Upper Magnesian Limestone,' which is here replaced 

 {vertreten luird)''^ by the marls, shales {Schiefertlion)^ and sand- 

 stones, &c., as described above. 



May not the sandstones and marls below the Pebble-bed equally 

 reward the minute scrutiny of local geologists? — (Dec. 22^ 1891.)] 



III. The Age oe the Breccias. 



All we can say of them with certainty is that they are post-Car- 

 boniferous in the Permian sense. It has been suggested to me by 

 Mr. Jukes-Browne that, if Permian, they must be late Permian, 

 because they contain fragments of the igneous rocks of South Devon, 

 which are intrusive in the Carboniferous of that region, and there- 

 fore younger than that series. "We need probably a good deal more 

 field-work to determine definitely the true relation of the intrusive 

 felspathic igneous rocks of the district to the breccias before we can 

 feel quite satisfied with the evidence this may afford. The argument 

 here referred to was advanced in former years to prove the Triassic 

 age of the breccias by Mr. Pengelly. My own acquaintance with 

 them is insufficient to warrant me in doing more than make the 

 suggestion that in the Crediton Valley at least we seem to have 

 true volcanic agglomerates, indicative of contemporaneous volcanic 

 action. But we are here confronted with the wider question, as to 

 the vertical range of the Carboniferous, which is represented by the 

 anomalous South Devon series. On this point Mr. Etheridge has 



remarked : — " South of the Mendips we enter quite a different 



local series of Carboniferous beds, with little coal and little lime- 

 stone ; a series as unlike the great Carboniferous series of the other 

 side of the Bristol Channel, in South Wales, as is the Devonian type 

 of Old Hed Sandstone of Devon to the Old Ped of Breconshire and 

 Scotland." ^ So far as I know, there is no evidence to show that 

 the younger Carboniferous rocks (including at least the whole of the 

 Coal Measures) are represented in Devon at all. If, then, none of 

 the Devon Carboniferous are younger than the Millstone Grit of the 



^ Creduer, ' Elemente der Geologie,' 6th ed. (1887) loc. supra cit. 

 ^ ' Ueber die rothen und bunten Mergel der oberen Dyas bei Manchester,' 

 IN'aturwissenschat'tl. Gesellsch. his in Dresden, 1889. 



^ Op. cit. p. 1. ^ Loc. cii. p. 9. 



5 ' iStratigraphical Geology ' (Phillips's Manual, 1885 ed.), p. 220. 



