Devonshire Association Research Articles

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George Bartle, An Old Radical and his Brood , Janus Publishing Co. London, 1994, £9.95. ISBN 1 895756 132 5. Sir John Bowring, 1792-1872: Aspects of his Life and Career . Edited by Joyce Youings, Latimer Trend Plymouth for the Devonshire Association, 1993, £9.00. ISBN 0 85214 052 5. These two paperback books are usefully complementary; the first being based largely on Bowring’s family correspondence, and primarily a study of his relations with his family, whilst the second is a collection of eight articles on such topics as Bowring’s contributions in Government service, his struggles to reform Devon quarter sessions, and his Spanish poetry translations. These articles were originally part of a symposium held at Exeter in 1992 under the auspices of the Devonshire Association for the Advancement of Science, Literature and the Arts, and the Devon and Exeter Association Bowring was first President of the former, and then President of the latter.

Joyce Youings ed., Sir John Bowring, 1792-1872: Aspects of his Life and Career, Plymouth, Latimer Trend and Company Ltd., for The Devonshire Association, 1993, pp. viii + 109.

Joyce Youings ed., Sir John Bowring, 1792-1872: Aspects of his Life and Career, Plymouth, Latimer Trend and Company Ltd., for The Devonshire Association, 1993, pp. viii + 109.

The Exeter Book and Lambeth Palace Library MS 149: The Monasterium of Sancta Maria

The Exeter Book and Lambeth Palace Library MS 149: The Monasterium of Sancta Maria

Centenary of the Journal

The first number of the Journal-of the Marine Biological Association appeared in August 1887, during the final stages of the building of the Laboratory, while research was being carried out from rented rooms in the Barbican. To celebrate the centenary of this outstanding serial publication in marine science, and the centenary of the opening of the Laboratory in June next year, we are including in the present issue an updated account of the history of the Association, based on a version originally published in 1984 to celebrate the founding of the Association in March 1884. We are indebted to the Council of the Devonshire Association for the Advancement of Science for permission to reprint a substantial part of the text that appeared in their Transactions for 1984.

WEST COUNTRY SHIPYARD PRACTICE IN THE DAYS OF WOODEN SHIPS

Vernon Boyle is known to members of the Society for Nautical Research for his masterly article ‘The Bideford Polackers’ (M.M., Vol. XVIII (1932), pp. 109–24), published in the early days of a welcome revival of interest in regional craft. He also wrote the North Devon part of Devon Harbours (London: Christopher Johnson, 1952), and contributed a number of papers to learned societies in his native county, of which probably the most notable was ‘Arts and Crafts of an Old Seaport’ (Trans. Devonshire Association…, Vol. LXXX (1948), pp. 137–45). All were beautifully illustrated with line drawings, for he was a renowned artist in that and other media, and the text had an easy, readable style, none the less as complete and detailed as one would wish. Boyle collected material of North Devon and North Cornwall interest, architectural as well as nautical, and at the time of his rather sudden death in June 1954, had for two or three years been preparing some of his sea lore for a book which was to appear in our joint...

Prehistoric Settlements on Dartmoor and the Cornish Moors

It is not my intention in this paper to deal with the whole field of antiquities found on the southwestern moors and I shall only refer to the sepulchral and other remains of a ritual character in so far as they have a direct bearing on the interpretation of the settlements (fig. 1). Inclusion of the Cornish moors is prompted by the fact that certain stages in the development of the settlements are not represented on Dartmoor but can be illustrated from the lower moorlands further west.The material on which my interpretation is based is largely the result of work carried out by the Dartmoor Exploration Committee of the Devonshire Association. Beginning in 1894 this Committee, in addition to other work, explored some 20 settlements excavating nearly 150 hut circles. The objects discovered are mostly in the City Museum at Plymouth and some of the pottery is now illustrated for the first time. Most of the Committee's work was carried out in the first ten years of its existence, but the excavation of a site now flooded by the Torquay Corporation's reservoir was undertaken as late as 1933 and the Committee remained in existence until 1950, when the Association reconstituted its arrangements in respect of Dartmoor. As the last surviving member of the old Dartmoor Exploration Committee it is perhaps fitting that it should fall to my lot to interpret the results then obtained in the light of more modern knowledge and methods. The Association has kindly sanctioned the republication of figs. 4, 5, 6 and 9.

Book Reviews

Flora of Devon Phanerogams, Vascular Cryptogams, Charophyta. Promoted by the Devonshire Association. Edited by Rev. W. Keble Martin Gordon T. Fraser, with the assistance of Rev. Thomas Stophenson and Francis M. Day. Pp. xv + 787 + 8 plates. (Arbroath:T. Buncle and Co., Ltd.; London:Wheldon and Wesley, Ltd., 1939.) 25s.

Differentiation in the Dartmoor Granite

IN his presidential address to the Devonshire Association on June 24, Mr. R. Hansford Worth devotes a section to a brief survey of Dartmoor geology and states, inter alia, that he cannot accept the idea of differentiated types of varied age for this granite mass.

II.—The Dunstones of Plymouth and the Compton-Efford Grit. By R. H. WorthM. Inst. C. E., F.G.S. Transactions of the Devonshire Association for the Advancement of Science, Literature, and Art, xlviii, pp. 217–59, 1916.

II.—The Dunstones of Plymouth and the Compton-Efford Grit. By R. H. WorthM. Inst. C. E., F.G.S. Transactions of the Devonshire Association for the Advancement of Science, Literature, and Art, xlviii, pp. 217–59, 1916.

VI.—Facts observed by Lieut. Damant, R.N., at the Sea-bottom

Taking into consideration the apparently hopeless tangle in which the ripplemark and submarine erosion questions had become involved, I submitted to the Devonshire Association in July last a paper entitled “The Ripplemark Controversy,” in which I attempted to bequeath the subject to posterity in such a form that anyone interested in the enquiry could pick it up where it had been dropped. It was, at any rate, my own farewell, or was so intended to be.

VI.—Old Lamps or New? Another Contribution to Devonshire Controversial Geology

Unsolved geological problems, or what perhaps may be better described as obscure points in geological history round which conflicting hypotheses have arisen, are to be found in many parts of our Islands, but Devonshire seems to be an usually prolific field for them. Mr. W. H. Hudleston, F.R.S., in his presidential address to the Devonshire Association in 1889, enumerates nine questions propounded by Pengelly in 1868 as still requiring special consideration in the future. Of these possibly three may be said to have nearly or quite got beyond the controversial stage, but in the meantime others have arisen, and it would thus appear that the undecided position of numerous points demanding further investigation is the normal condition of a science in the developmental stage.

Reviews of Books

Reviews of Books Get access The Devonshire ‘Domesday’. V. ‘The Hundreds of Devon.’ VI. ‘Domesday Identifications.’ By OSWALD J. REICHEL. (Reprinted from the Transactions of the Devonshire Association for the Advancement of Science, Literature, and Art, xxxiii. 1901.) J. H. ROUND J. H. ROUND Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The English Historical Review, Volume XVII, Issue LXVIII, October 1902, Pages 764–765, https://doi.org/10.1093/ehr/XVII.LXVIII.764 Published: 01 October 1902

Obituary notice of William Pengelly F.R.S., Associate

When I read, three months ago, my paper on Kent's Cavern, I little thought I should so soon have to chronicle the death of its famous explorer, William Pengelly. That sad event occurred at Torquay on 17th March last. The son of a Cornish fisherman, William Pengelly was born at East Looe, a village in Cornwall, on 12th January 1812, so that he died at the ripe age of eighty-two. He began life as a sailor, but his scientific leanings made him become a teacher at Torquay, where he established a school. To the end of his life he continued giving lectures on Science at schools and institutes, possessing, as he did, in a rare degree, the art of presenting Science to the public in a lucid and attractive way. But he was not merely an admirable speaker, he was also a man of action. He established the Torquay Mechanics' Institute in 1837. He founded the Torquay Natural History Society in 1844, and the Devonshire Association in 1862. It was in 1841, when twenty-nine years old, that Pengelly attended the sale of the effects of the Rev. John MacEnery, who had just died. MacEnery had from the year 1825 made continuous researches into a then little known cave near Torquay, popularly called “Kent's Hole.” Himself a Roman Catholic priest, MacEnery called in the assistance of an eminent Anglican clergyman, the Rev. Dr Buckland, author of “ Reliquiae Diluvianae,” who was at that time the great authority on ossiferous caves in

A Marine Millipede

IT may interest “D. W. T.” (NATURE, December 5, p. 104) to know that Geophilus maritimus is found under stones and sea-weeds on the shore at or near Plymouth, and recorded in my “Fauna of Devon,” Section “Myriopoda,” &c., 1874, published in the Transactions of the Devonshire Association for the Advancement of Literature, Science, and Art, 1874. This species was not known to Mr. Newport when his monograph was written (Linn. Trans., vol. xix., 1845). Dr. Leach has given a very good figure of this species in the Zoological Miscellany, vol. iii. pl. 140, Figs. 1 and 2, and says: “Habitat in Britannia inter scopulos ad littora maris vulgatissime.” But, so far as my observations go, I should say it is a rare species. See Zoologist, 1866, p. 7, for further observations on this animal.

IV.—On the Tunnel Section Near Honiton, Devon

The writer has for some time hesitated to seek in the pages of the Geological Magazine a publication of his-experiences upon the above subject. He fell last year into a grievous mistake with regard to it, and suffered that mistake to be published in the “Transactions of the Devonshire Association for the Promotion of Science, Literature, and Art.” It will be his duty, when the opportunity comes round (as shortly it will), to call attention to that mistake in the pages of the same periodical. In the meantime he thinks that the subject, and even the mistake associated with it, may be of something more than local interest. At least the recantation of a published error cannot be too widely circulated.

Recent Earthquakes

MR. W. A. SANFORD, in NATURE of January 29, p. 289, says on the above subject:—“It would be interesting to know whether anything of the same kind [as described in his letter] had been observed elsewhere at the same time.” I have been collecting observations on this subject for a continuation of my paper on earthquakes in Devon, published in the Transactions of the Devonshire Association. The Vicar of Bampton has very kindly given me his experience of the earthquake, as the wave appeared to have passed very near, if not directly under, his house. Bampton is seven miles north of Tiverton, and about a mile inside the junction of the Carboniferous and the Devonian systems, situate on a rather large patch of limestone. The time the earthquake occurred there was 8.42 p.m. In the drawingroom at the vicarage it appeared as if a heavy traction-engine was passing close to the window; the window faces eastward. In the kitchen the servants were greatly alarmed by a rumbling noise and a shaking under the floor. Some of the Vicar's neighbours say they heard a report, and houses with cellars under them and higher felt the shaking more; some persons who were up stairs, thinking that it was some explosion, rushed down stairs and out of doors. The effects were also felt at Shillingford, two miles distant, and also at Combehead, one and a half mile distant. The porters at the station describe it as like a heavily-laden mineral train passing. The only damage done at Bampton was a piece of wall was thrown clown. This was undoubtedly the same shock or seismic wave as mentioned by Mr. Sanford as occurring on the night of Thursday, January 22, and would appear to have travelled from east to west.

On the Geology of the South Devon Coast from Torcross to Hope Cove

T he wild and picturesque coast which fringes the most southern part of Devonshire has already attracted the notice of not a few geologists. As, however, a detailed list of their writings, carried up to the year 1879, will he found in a valuable paper by Mr. Pengelly, published in the ‘Report and Transactions of the Devonshire Association for the Advancement of Science, Literature, and Arts’ (vol. xi. p. 319); and as no material addition to our knowledge, so far as I am aware, has since been made, it is needless for me to burden the pages of our ‘Journal’ with a copious history of the literature of the subject. Suffice it to say that the geology of this district is described in the paper of Sedgwick and Murchison “On the Stratified Deposits of Devonshire” (Trans. Geol. Soc. ser. ii. vol. v. p. 633), and in the “Report” of Sir H. De la Beche. In these two works, which after the lapse of more than forty years are still of the greatest value, the stratigraphy of South Devon is excellently sketched, and the main problems relating to it are clearly enunciated. Briefly stated, the latter amount to this: Does this district indicate a progressive metamorphic action, which increases in intensity as we proceed southwards? or do we find here two distinct and independent series, the southern, a group of highly metamorphosed rocks, true schists, the northern, slates, such as are common elsewhere in Devonshire, with no signs of a transition from