OF THE PLEISTOCENE DEPOSITS OF DEVON. 451 



gravel. At Combworthy a trap boulder was found in the clay, 

 which was capped by gravel. 



The probable contemporaneity of the Fremington gravels with 

 raised beaches would lead one to regard them as of estuarine origin. 



(c) Boulders * of large size are frequent in the old gravels of the 

 Teign and Dart ; but whether well worn or faintly subangulated, 

 ice-markings have, so far as I am aware, never been detected upon 

 them. 



(d) The occurrence of raised beaches is confined to the older-rock 

 coast-line. The fine examples at Hope's Nose and Saunton Burrows 

 have received much attention f . Their height above the sea is re- 

 markable, as those on the Cornish coast seldom exceed 10 feet above 

 high- water mark on the strand adjacent, and the traces of old 

 beaches near Start and Prawle Points and at Sharkham Point and 

 Slapton Ley do not furnish exceptions to the rule. 



(e) On the Palaeozoic coast-line of Devon, as well as Cornwall, 

 the cliffs are frequently capped by angular stony debris, consisting, 

 so far as I have observed, of such material as would be afforded 

 by the adjacent rocks. This angular accumulation is imbedded 

 in a brown or reddish-brown loamy clay. Where raised beaches 

 and stony loam are exhibited in the same cliff, the latter in- 

 variably overlies the former. An apparent anomaly is furnished by 

 the raised beach near Prawle Point, to which Mr. Pengelly assigns 

 two different periods of formation with an intervening period of 

 waste. Prom an examination of the section I am disposed to re- 

 gard the apparent separation of the upper from the lower exposed 

 portions of the beach as due to a concealing mask of talus from the 

 accumulation above, partially obscuring the section. 



In inland districts the subjacent rock is frequently concealed 

 by a thick soil with unworn stones, the harder portions of the 

 disintegrated strata ; this may in places be contemporaneous with 

 that on the coast, and referable to the same period of meteoric 

 waste. To this angular accumulation the general term of "Head" 

 is applied. 



(/) Traces of submerged forests £ have been noticed in Torbay, 

 Bigbury Bay, at Blackpool, near Dartmouth, on the north and south 

 sands in Salcombe estuary, at the mouth of the Char§, and at West- 

 ward Ho. In most cases the vegetable matter is associated with 

 bluish leaden-coloured clay. Mr. Pengelly mentions the discovery 

 of bones of Cervus elaphus, Sus scrofa, Equus caballus, Bos longifrons, 

 and ElepTias primigenius in the relics of the Tor- Abbey, Goodrington, 

 and Broad-Sands portions of the Torbay forest. 



* ' Geology of England and Wales,' by H. B. Woodward, p. 317 ; Ormerod, 

 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xxiii. p. 418 &c. ; Ussher, Trans. Dev. Assoc, for 

 1876, " On old Gravels of River Dart." 



t Trans. Geol. Soc. 2nd ser. vol. v. pp. 279, 287 ; Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. 

 vol. vii. p. 118 et seq. ; Trans. Dev. Assoc, for 1867, p. 43; Student, vol. iv. 

 p. 338 et seq. 



\ Trans. Dev. Assoc, for 1865, part iv. p. 30 ; for 1866, part v. pp. 77, 80 ; 

 for 1868, vol. ii. p. 415 ; for 1869, vol. iii. p. 127. 



| De la BecheJa ' Report ' &<•.. p. 417. 



