[ 163] 



V- 



Assuming that these lower beds 

 are of Eocene age, and contempo- 

 raneous with the Bournemouth Beds 

 of the Hampshire Basin, the Author 

 points out that nothing has yet been 

 proved with regard to the higher beds, 

 which may be of Bartonian, or even 

 of Oligocene age. 



Discussion. 



Mr. E. A. Martin desired to know 

 whether the re-naming of the flora of 

 the Bovey Beds was thought to carry 

 with it any possibility of a later 

 classification than that of 01igocene= 



Mr. J. Allen Howe remarked that 

 there seemed to be much more said 

 in the paper about ' dismal swamp ' 

 than about the stratigraphic.il facts of 

 the Bovey Basin, and pointed out that 

 direct evidence of the disappearance 

 of the ' Eocene ' gravel beneath the 

 clays and lignites was not clearly 

 shown at either end of the section 

 exhibited ; and, as for the intermediate 

 portion, there was absolutely no evi- 

 dence whatever, for the Heathfield 

 boring did not penetrate through the 

 lignites into any underlying gravels. 



The speaker wished to emphasize 

 his view that the disappearance of the 

 ' marginal ' gravels beneath the clays, 

 etc. had nowhere been conclusively 

 demonstrated ; and that the omission 

 to pay due attention to the irregular 

 overlying layer of gravel — exactly 

 similar in lithological characters — 

 although it facilitated the construction 

 of certain theories, gave an erroneous 

 aspect of simplicity to the problem. 



The speaker thought it a pity to con- 

 struct a section of this kind, making 

 everything look so regular and orderly, 

 when, as a matter of fact, the indi- 

 vidual beds of clay, sand, and lignite 

 were (so far as could be made out) 

 decidedly lenticular and inconstant. 

 Moreover, although the diagram no 

 doubt represented correctly the gene- 

 ralized section of the beds at the site 

 of the Heathfield boring, it was hardly 

 correct to make it apply to the whole 

 m2 



