habitants of that period resorted to the outcrop of the chalk for
flint nodules from which to fabricate such implements as they required of that material. During the process of manufacture many of
these implements were rejected as incomplete, or were subsequently
lost over the limited area skirting the coast-line of that era, which
may have been dry land at low water.
This appears to have been the first era of this manufacture. The second epoch finds the race of men inhabiting the area within some miles of the chalk outcrop possessed of somewhat increased mental and manual ability. They no longer manufactured the flint nodules procurable along the coast-line, where, doubtless, they were most abundant, but they resorted to the absolute chalk outcrop, and carried away with them into the interior the primary flint nodules, and then chipped them into flakes more nearly resembling the arrow-head of subsequent times than those fabricated by their progenitors.
I believe it quite possible that the leaf-shaped flint flakes of this second epoch, such as those found in the bed of the river Bunn, at Toome Bridge, were known to and used by the earliest of the historic races in Ireland, and by them worked into those delicately chipped and symmetrically formed winged arrow-heads, spear-, and javelin-heads which are found so often, associated with rude pottery, beads of amber, glass, and shells, in our sepulchral tumuli and megalithic chambers.
2. On the "Waterstone Beds" of the Keuper, containing Pseudo-Morphous Crystals of Chloride of Sodium, in the Counties of Somerset and Devon. By G. Wareing Ormerod, M. A., F.G.S. (Read June l7, 1868*.)
During a recent visit to Devon, the Rev. W. S. Symonds stated that he thought he had recognized "the Waterstone beds" of the Keuper at Exmouth, this being, it is believed, the first time that they have been noticed in this county. As the point, however, was not clear, I devoted a few days to a cursory examination of the Red Sandstone from Culverhole point, where it crops out from under the Lias, to Exmouth. As some months will probably elapse before I can make a close examination of them, I send the following particulars as marking the position of the rocks of this district in the "Trias." Between Culverhole point and Seaton I could not find "Waterstone. Prom Branscombe Mouth to Weston Mouth I was not able to examine the coast. Between Weston Mouth and Salcombe Mouth many beds of gypsum appear in the cliff; and between Salcombe Mouth and the river Sid several beds of very fully ripple-marked "Water-stone" occur, as also pseudomorphous crystals of Chloride of Sodium. This, I believe, is the first instance of the occurrence of such crystals in Devonshire. The coast between Sidmouth and Budleigh-Salterton has not been examined by me. Between Budleigh-Salterton
- For the other Communications read at this Evening Meeting, see Quart.
Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xxiv. p. 484.
