On quarries at Beer, in Devonshire, and some of their fossils

Abstract

The few typical specimens which I have now the pleasure of forwarding to the Geological Society, Edinburgh, and which I beg they will do me the honour to accept, are from some cretaceous beds in a quarry at Beer, in Devonshire. On reference to a geological map, a triangular patch of chalk will be observed at the eastern end of the county, extending from near Gatcombe on the north, to the coast at ‶Beerhead,″ a headland facing the south; and from ‶White Cliff,″ near Seaton on the east, to Branscombe mouth and the neighbourhood on the west. In a vale running towards the centre of this area is the quaint little village of Beer, and about a mile west of this, on the road to Branscombe, are the Beer quarries. The whole surface of this area is very uneven, and there are various evidences of its having been subjected to great geological disturbance. Sir Henry de la Beche, alluding to the depression at Beer, states that this ‶may have been due to disturbance subsequently to the formation of the chalk and green sand, or that these may have filled up inequalities in the older rocks.″ The relative position, however, of some of the strata, seems to favour the former opinion rather than the latter. The Beer quarries have been worked for many centuries. Polwhele, a writer of the latter part of the last century, in his ‶History of Devonshire,″ gives an account of them, also of others in the same