FLINT FLAKES OF DEVON AND CORNWALL. 
175 
cimens are found. These, as far as our observations support us, 
consist of rolled fragments of granite, quartz, trap, basalt, and 
unbroken nodules of flint ; in fact, of materials very similar to 
those that exist near high water mark on the present beach, and 
which, probably, are obtained from the destruction of the so- 
called raised beach that overhangs them. 
It was from the flints found on this beach, that were washed 
out of the ancient soft sandy rock, that I believe the old inha- 
bitants at Baggy Point obtained the f raw material’ from which 
the flint flakes were fabricated, and which also probably accounts 
for the site of the chief place of manufacture being on the sea cliff. 
In one place, resting on the present, and immediately sup- 
porting the ancient beach, is a large boulder-mass of granite, 
estimated to weigh about twelve tons. The upper portion, that 
is, all that can be seen, is smooth and rounded, in a manner that 
suggests the whole of it to be similarly water-worn; a circum- 
stance that corroborates the opinion of Mr. Williams, in a paper 
published as a supplement to that of Professor Sedgwick and 
Sir Roderick Murchisson, in the Transactions of the Geological 
Society for 1839, that it has been borne from a great distance, 
probably by some iceberg, in the great glacial epoch. This 
granite boulder contains veins and crystals of red felspar, and 
is stated by Mr. Williams not to resemble the granite either of 
Dartmoor or Lundy Island, and that there is none like it nearer 
than Aberdeen. But this assertion must be received with cau- 
tion, as I have recently been informed by Dr. Trefry, of Fowey, 
that every kind of granite is found in his quarries in Cornwall, 
and I have seen in his porphery hall at Place House, specimens 
very similar to that of the boulder in Barnstaple Bay. There- 
fore, it appears, that we need not go so far as Scotland to find 
the site from which this great stray rock may have been derived; 
but still we must acknowledge that it must have travelled from 
afar to have been worn so smooth, and that some enormous 
transporting power must have been required to bring this gra- 
nite mass, even from the nearest granite district, to the place 
where it now rests.* 
Not being a geologist, I cannot pronounce upon the period to 
which the boulder belonged, but of this there can be no doubt, 
that it was lodged in its present position before the deposit that 
is called a raised sea beach commenced ; therefore, it is older 
than the sand bed that rests upon it. The elevation of the 
highest point of the raised beach is about forty feet ; we must, 
therefore, suppose that the highest point of this beach must 
have been covered by water, at least at high tide, before the 
* The presence of basalt found among the pebbles is suggestive of the 
North of Ireland. 
