FLINT FLAKES OF DEVON AND CORNWALL. 
173 
were found, 100 of which were typical flakes, some being as long 
as a finger.” 
The soil in the chief place of excavation, that is, in the Dell 
near Baggy Point, is about eight or ten feet above the natural 
slate rock of the country. The lower portion of the bed consists 
of yellowish clay, and the upper part of alluvial or surface soil 
brought down by atmospheric influences from the adjoining hill. 
A few inches above the clay a line of black mould existed, and 
it was in and above this line that all the flints and materials 
were found, that is within four feet of the surface, allowing six 
inches for soil that had been removed for farming purposes. 
Along the coast from Baggy Point to Braunton Burrows a 
belt of sandy rock exists, soft in its structure towards the upper 
part, but hard as granite in the lower beds. This belt of sand 
has been pronounced to be a raised sea beach by Sir Roderick 
Murchisson and Professor Sedgwick, who, moreover, pronounced 
it to be one of the finest specimens of the kind. Oyer this, so- 
called, raised sea beach the surface soil has accumulated, and 
in this soil the flint flakes are found. Passing onward, we come 
to a tract of two or more miles of blownsand, which is sepa- 
rated from the sea by a broad and navigable river, the estuary 
of the Taw and the Torridge, from a low grassy place that 
stands at a level with high spring tides, and which is separated 
from the sea by a broad ridge of large pebbles, that rise to a 
height of about sixteen or twenty feet, and extend in length for 
about a mile and a half. Outside this pebble ridge, an exten- 
sive beach of fine sand covers the surface as far as low water 
mark at ordinary tides, beneath the sand, which at different 
places may be seen peeping through, is a bed of blue clay about 
six feet thick, beneath which is a layer of pebble boulders, simi- 
lar in appearance to those which form the pebble ridge ; and 
below these exist the angular fragments formed by the natural 
disintegration of the slate rock of the country. 
In the bed of clay beneath the sand, the roots and trunks of 
trees testify to the former presence of vegetable growth, of which 
the kinds may be interpreted by the presence of acorns and 
nuts found in the clay ; and the growth and luxuriance may be 
supposed from the quantity of the fruit, the size and remains 
both of the roots and the trunks, as well as from the circum- 
stance that perforation in the nuts demonstrate that squirrels 
skipped among the branches of the trees that grew there. In 
this clay, in which roots, nuts, and acorns exist, flint flakes have 
been found in considerable numbers, one or two of which bear 
the impress of having been under the action of fire. Thus we 
see, in this place, that the flint flakes exist in connection with a 
submerged forest, whereas at Croyde and Baggy Point, at a dis- 
tance of about four miles to the eastward, they have been found 
