The Eocene Deposits of Devon

Abstract

In a paper read before this Society in 1896 I gave a short description of the Eocene Deposits of Dorset, and remarked that ‘It is noteworthy that the new evidence discovered in the western end of the Hampshire Basin strongly supports the idea that the pipeclays of the Bagshot Series are derived from the weathering of the Dartmoor Granite, and that the Bovey Tracey outlier, so like the deposits around Bournemouth, is, as maintained by Mr. Starkie Gardner, of the same age and deposited in the same basin, though in Devon Eocene rest directly on Palæozoic rocks.’ Since these words were written I have had occasion to re-examine the Bovey basin on behalf of the Geological Survey, with the result that light can now be thrown on several obscure points in the geology. As my notes on the Bovey area will complete the general description of the western end of the Hampshire Basin, it will be useful to lay before the Society the results, especially as much detailed work remains to be done and it will be at least 3 years before any general memoir can be published. In the year 1875, when Mr. H. B. Woodward was revising the geology of the Bovey basin, and I was engaged in mapping the Greensand and plateau-gravel of Haldon, we were much exercised as to the age and relationship of the deposits, but then had no clear evidence to permit us to go contrary to the received ideas, though liar. Woodward published