CoHf/lonifirates, and Marls of Devonshire. 
33 
again lost, having been cut down by denudation to form the valley 
into which it dips, and being masked by alluvial matter and the 
extensive shingle beach which divides the latter from the sea 
Patches of the Marl i?i situ, however, protrude here and there 
through the shingle, and a ledge of the same rock forms a sort of 
rapid near the mouth of the river. 
Immediately west of the village the beds are chiefly red and 
blueish marl containing an appreciable amount of carbonate of 
lime. Water, oozing through the cliff, deposits this salt on grass 
and leaves. 
The river Axe is jammed close against its eastern or left bank, 
which rises very abi-uptly when compared wdth the long and gentle 
acclivity of the western bank, from which it is separated by a broad 
alluvial plain It may be remarked, in passing, that this descrip- 
tion applies strictly also to both the Otter and the Sid. 
The Triassic strata east of Axmouth consist of marl ; and, on 
the whole, dip slightly eastward. The inclination never exceeds 
5^, and, in consequence of a series of gentle undulations, it is 
alternately eastward and westward. Red can no longer be consi- 
dered the prevalent colour, since many of the beds are greenish- 
drab, whilst others are more or less blue ; the latter perhaps being 
the most prevalent. There is nothing like the mottled or blotched 
character so common further west ; it is here not a red formation 
in which from some portions of certain layers the colour has been 
discharged. Nor, when it does occur, is the red so pronounced as 
it is throughout the entire district from Torbay to the Axe ; in 
fact, so faint is it in many cases that it is impossible not to regard 
it as a prediction of a coming change — a graduation into the well- 
known colour of the Lias, the formation immediately succeeding 
it in chronological order, and which overlies it a very short distance 
eastward. Different portions of the cliff undergo variations of 
tint ; thus at something less than a mile from Axmouth harbour 
the section consists almost exclusively of faintly red beds, and this 
E 
