361 
THE EFFECT OF FAULTS ON THE CHARACTER OF THE SEASHORE. 
BY THEO. T. GROOM, F.G.S. 
{Read January 16th, 1894.) 
If the shore-line extending from Westward Ho near Bideford to a 
point situated about a mile to the south-west, and forming the central 
strip of Barnstaple Bay, be viewed broadly, it will be seen to take a 
tolerably even and unbroken course ; when examined in detail, how- 
ever, it is found to be broken up at all levels of the tide into a series 
of small bays and promontories, or islands (figs. 1 and 2). From the 
cliffs which bound the shore abruptly on the inland side a rocky 
platform, generally from two to three hundred yards wide, slopes 
gently down to the irregular low-water line. The cliffs usually vary 
in height from 15 or 20 feet above high-water level to perhaps five or 
six times that height, and show at a relatively small height above 
high-tide mark (20 feet or so) the remains of an old pebble-beach ; 
this, so far as it is preserved, shows no trace of the differential move- 
ments which have affected the rocks of the intertidal platform. The 
facts given above indicate that since the elevation which raised the 
old beach the land here has remained stationary for a period long 
enough to allow of the formation of a considerable indentation of the 
profile along the shore-line, and that, as might be expected, the dif- 
ferential movements which have affected the platform and which will 
be referred to later, are of earlier date than the formation of the old 
beach. 
The rocks forming the platform and the cliffs are a series of 
shales, sandy shales, flags and sandstones, belonging apparently to 
the Morchard and Exeter types recognised by Mr. W. A. E. Ussher* 
in the Culm Measures. These, as is well known, have been affected 
by folds running chiefly E. and W., so that the rocks strike nearly 
straight out to sea. In the area examined they dip sometimes to 
* The Culm Measures of Devonshire. Geol. Mag., vol. iv., 1887. The 
British Culm Measures. Proc. Somerset Archaeological and Natural History 
Society, vol. xxxviii., 1892. 
