188 
JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
THE EXTINCT LAKE OF BOVEY TEACEY. 
ABSTRACT OF LECTURE BY W. PENGELLY, F.R.S., F.G.S., ETC. 
(Delivered 26th March, 1885.) 
The area known to geologists as the "Bovey Basin" stretches, 
somewhat cnrvilinearly, in a S.E. direction from a point upward of 
a mile W.N.W from the little town of Bovey Tracey — adjacent to 
the north-eastern angle of Dartmoor — to the village of Kingskers- 
well — 3 "5 miles N.W. from Torquay harbour. Its area is about 
12 square miles, that is about 15 per cent, larger than Winder- 
mere, the largest existing English Lake. The rivers flowing through 
it are the Teign and its tributaries, the chief of which are the 
Bovey, the Lemon, and the Aller. 
Among the deposits in the Basin the substance locally known as 
Bovey Coal, more generally termed Lignite, seems to have been 
the first to attract scientific attention. As early as 1760 the Be v. 
Dr. Jeremiah Milles, by publishing a letter entitled " Researches 
on Bovey Coal " (Phil. Trans, li. 534), laid the foundation of the 
somewhat voluminous literature of the deposits, the results of which 
may be briefly stated thus : — 
1. That the Lignite was of vegetable origin. 
2. That the Clays and Sands interstratified with the Lignite 
were derived from the disintegrated and decomposed granite of 
Dartmoor. 
3. That only one species of fossil (Folliculites minutulus) had 
been found in the Lignite and associated beds. 
1. That the Lignite and the interbedded Clays and Sands were 
certainly Supracretaceous, and probably belonged to a very modern 
Tertiary era. 
While the first two conclusions met with general acceptance, 
there was a strong belief that, instead of but one species of fossil, 
a thorough and systematic investigation would be rewarded with 
