88 
THE DEVONIAN ROOKS OF ILFRACOMBE. 
most part at an angle of 88°, being almost perpendicular, with a 
uniform dip to the E.S.E. 
I.—Upper Devonian Beds. 
Above the Ilfracombe Beds come the Morthoe Slates, 
which appear at the coast at Morte Point and Barricane Beach. 
This point is a sharp, almost razor-backed, ridge of slate, running 
out into the sea, terminating with a sharp rock called the Morte 
Stone, or Death Stone, because of the fatal effects which follow 
upon a ship or boat being driven upon it. The rocks at Barricane 
Beach stand up like sharp razors, in which numerous veins of 
white quartz are to be seen. These beds were formerly considered 
unfossiliferous, but I believe that during the last few years fossils 
have been discovered in them. 
Proceeding along the coast, we come to Woolacombe Sands, a 
tract of sandhills which terminate at Vention, near to Baggy 
Point, where we come to the Pickwell Down Beds, in which some 
plant remains are to be found, such as the Knorria , or Bornia , but 
I had no opportunity of visiting the quarry in which these fossils 
occur. Above these beds come the Marwood or Cucullaea Beds, 
which are composed of grey shales, sandstones, and thin limestones, 
full of fossils. These beds I examined at various places. The first 
quarry I visited was a short distance inland from the village of 
Braunton, from which the sandhills or burrows, so famous for rare 
plants, take their name—Braunton Burrows. In this quarry I 
found a hard grit, full of fossils; but there was this peculiarity 
attaching to this rock, that the part in which the fossils were most 
abundant was rotten, and hence, when the fossils were rubbed, they 
soon disappeared. The principal fossils which I was able to secure 
here were those of Gucullcea Hardingii , Sow., a fossil of general 
occurrence in these rocks, hence the name, “ Cucullaea Beds.” In 
these rocks “dendritic markings” upon the stone are common, 
which assume different forms. In some instances they resemble 
broad-leaved plants, and in others those of algae ; two specimens of 
this latter form are now exhibited. 
In the neighbouring parish of Marwood, whence the name 
“ Marwood Beds ” is derived, I visited another quarry at the hamlet 
April, 1893. 
