654 Geological Society: — 



to have removed all the Permian. Its present dissected condition 

 shows that it is older than the Pleistocene, and consequently an 

 Eocene date would agree with local evidence. 



The author accepts the Eocene age of the Haldon gravels and of 

 the JBovey deposits, and adduces evidence for a connexion between 

 the Haldon plateau and the Bovey basin on the one hand, and 

 between the Aller basin and the Torquay plateau-area on the other. 

 He regards the Bovey basin as a locally-deep depression, along a 

 line of Miocene deflexion which crosses Devon from north-west to 

 south-east, and believes the plateau-area near Torquay to be the 

 flattened-out extension of this flexure. He thus considers the 

 plateau to be part of the basal plain on which the Eocene deposits lie, 

 and infers that these deposits passed directly out of the Aller basin 

 on to this plateau, burying it to a depth of several hundred feet. 



Thus it was on the surface of the Eocene deposits that the 

 existing system of drainage was established. 



The Brixham plateau, south of Torbay, presents similar features 

 and appears to be of the same age, but in its case the drainage is 

 northward from higher ground to the south. This plateau can be 

 traced westward through Churston and Galmpton to Stoke Gabriel, 

 where there is high ground both to the north and south of it. It 

 is inferred that this plateau is the site of a second shallow flexure, 

 the axis of which ran nearly west and east, so as to meet and merge 

 into the other line of flexure outside the entrance of Torbay. 

 Incidentally this would explain the formation of Torbay. 



February 27th.— Sir Archibald Geikie, Sc.D., D.C.L., LL.D., 

 Sec. U.S., President, in the Chair. 



The following communications were read : — ■ 



1. ' On the Lower Ordovician Succession in Scandinavia.' By 

 "William George Fearnsides, M.A., F.G.S. 



The paper is a stratigraphical account of the Dictyonema-Shales, 

 the Ceratopyge-Beds, the Didymograptus-Shales, and the Orthoceras- 

 Limestone of Sweden and Southern Norway, and is based upon field- 

 observations of Scandinavian type-localities made by the author 

 during the summer of 1906. The beds are discussed under the 

 following headings : — 



(C) Didymograptt&s-Shales and OrtJiocerctkaXk, 

 (B) Grlauconite-Shales and Ceratopygeknlk, 

 (A) Dictyonema- and Bryoc/raptus-Shales, 



which are found to be applicable to all the sections visited. 



For purposes of ready correlation with the British Tremadoc rocks, 

 the upper part of the Acerocaris-zone of the Alum-Shales is con- 

 sidered along with Division A, and the presence of trilobites of 

 Ordovician type and related to those of the OeralopygekaXk in that 

 as well as in the Dictyonema-Be&s is emphasized. It is also held 

 that the branching graptolites of Division A show a progressive 

 evolutional divergence from an original Dictyonema through Dictyo- 

 grajptus flabdliformis to the true graptolites of Clonograptid or 

 Bryograptid types, and through D. norvegicus to the so-called 

 ' dendroid graptolites.' The gradual replacement of the western 



