38 
W. Pengelly on the Red Sandstones, 
1. DuriDg the period of the Bunter, south-eastern Devonshire 
was below the sea level, and the lower Red rocks of that district 
were deposited under conditions to which their remarkable colour 
is ascribable. 
2. At the close of this period, the district, in common with the 
whole of the British Archipelago, was raised above the sea level. 
3. Throughout the vast interval represented by the Muschelkalk 
of Germany no part of the British area was capable of receiving 
a deposit. 
4. At the close of the Middle Trias, South-eastern Devonshire 
was restored to its former level and the deposition of rocks was 
resumed ; when the conditions were so very similar that both in 
their colour and in their petralogy the new strata so strictly con- 
formed to the old ones as to render it impossible to detect or to 
draw a line of demarcation between them. 
To me it appears to be more simple and probable that the Red 
rocks of the south east of this county were deposited without any 
such great interruption, that they form one, not two, of the 
divisions of the Trias ; and, if so, there can be little doubt as to 
which group it is. There is towards the eastern end of the section 
so gradual an exchange of the red colour for greenish and blueish 
drabs, in short such a quiet inosculation of the features of the 
Trias with those of the Lias, and in Charton Bay, as well as west 
of Culverhole Point, the parallelism of the Liassic beds above and 
the Triassic beds below is so obvious, that, though, as has been 
stated, the precise junction of the two formations cannot in the 
former district, be exactly seen, it is impossible to doubt that the 
marl beds are the uppermost strata of the Keuper ; and to this 
age, in the present state of the evidence, I would refer the entire 
deposit from Torbay to the eastern confines of our county. 
I have dwelt at some length on this question because in my 
second paper the formation south of the Straight Point was sup- 
posed to belong to the Bunter, and I avail myself of this oppor- 
tunity to explain how that conclusion was arrived at. Hitherto 
