Notes on the Culm of South Devon: Part I—Exeter District

Abstract

I. I ntroduction . S ome ten years ago, my friend Mr. C. Davies Sherborn pressed upon me the desirability of making a thorough examination of the Culm Measures of South Devon, and promised every assistance in his power if I would undertake the task. He pointed out that a great part of the area was practically unexplored, and, if systematically worked, might yield results that would fix exactly the position of the beds in the Carboniferous System. The sequel has shown the soundness of his judgment. But, living on the spot, I knew well the reputation of the beds. To quote some recent writers, Mr. E. A. Newell Arber says:— From a palaeobotanical standpoint the Culm Measures offer a most unpromising field....; it is nowadays a matter of the greatest difficulty to obtain specimens sufficiently wel. preserved to admit of satisfactory determination. Principal A. W. Clayden writes:— They [the Exeter type of Culm Measures] are singularly devoid of recognizable fossils. Occasional essays of my own at collecting had but confirmed me in a similar opinion. However, I at length undertook a more systematic search for fossils than appears to have hitherto been made. Since then my schoolboy son Oliver and I have spent much of our leisure in patiently searching the Culm rocks of the neighbourhood, and the examination of a definite line of country having now been completed, the time has arrived to publish the results thus far obtained. The city of Exeter stands almost at the eastern extremity of the