Cornwall. There is a similar difficulty in accounting for the flints which are thrown up on almost every beach in Devon and Cornwall, and which in some instances, as at Slapton, in South Devon, form the larger portion of the beach material.

No one thinks, of course, of attempting to determine the source of the calcareous matter forming our limestones and chalks. These formations are mainly, if not exclusively, of organic origin-results of the labours of countless mollusks, and myriads of polyps and other lowly forms of life, which extracted from the ocean water the carbonate of lime which it held in solution. Nor is the case of our slates and finegrained grits much more hopeful. The extremely slow rate at which fine mud sinks in water, the depth of the ocean, and the persistency and velocity of many ocean currents, are sufficient to show that the area of construction may often be far removed from that of denudation.

But the deposits of our county are not the only evidences of denudation which it contains. It is as emphatically shown by the great vacant spaces between detached portions of what was originally one continuous formation. For example, we have no Greensand between Peake Hill near Sidmouth, and the Haldons; and thence again to Milber Down near Newton Abbot. That these great interspaces are natural quarries we may be sure, but where the excavated materials were carried it is by no means easy to determine. So again there are in Devonshire several small "Outliers" of Trias, as on the shores of Barnstaple, Start, and Bigbury Bays, many miles from one another as well as from the continuous formation. Within the last few weeks I have had the opportunity of studying a still more distant patch of the same rock, between the village of Cawsand and Redding Point, in Plymouth Sound. The denudation was obviously on a very large scale; but had it been still larger, had it destroyed the Outliers too, there would have been no evidence that it had ever taken place.

3rd. When we find that on such a question as the age of the oldest group of rocks in Devonshire, the opinion of Messrs. Sedgwick and Murchison-the Professor of Geology in the University of Cambridge, and the Director-General of the Geological Survey of Great Britain-is pronounced to be an error by the pupil of the former and the colleague of the latter-Mr. Jukes, Local Director of the Geological Survey of Ireland-it is perhaps not surprising that we occasionally hear it disparagingly stated that "geology is in its infancy; that "its most ardent cultivators are by no means agreed among themselves;" and that "what is orthodox to-day may

be heterodox to-morrow." On looking closely, however, it is found, as in others, that this case does not affect the great principles of the science, is mainly a matter of classification, and in a great degree arises from an attempt to discover a line where nature never drew one. In hastily generalizing from somewhat local facts, our fathers were too prone to suppose that from time to time convulsions had universally and synchronously depopulated the globe, and brought back chaos. On the restoration of order, it was supposed that by a new act of creation the world was re-peopled with organisms, which in their turn would be ejected by the same rude process. Had this been the real life-history of the earth, the divisions of geological time would be well defined and easily determined; but discovery has shown that it is anything but a true representation of actual facts; that there is reason to believe that from the advent of the first organism up to the present hour the world has never ceased to be the theatre of life; and that breaks in organic continuity arise entirely from the imperfection of the geological record. It is obvious, that in proportion as the science approximates perfection, the chasms will be filled in, and hard lines of demarcation will disappear. "We may be eventually compelled to resort to sections of time as arbitrary, and as purely conventional, as those which divide the history of human events into centuries." There will always be different systems of classification, and debatable zones at the junction of formations.

4th. Amongst the besetments of the cultivators, as well as the discouragers of science, is that of trusting to negative evidence, even when unsupported by any confirmatory positive fact; of practically forgetting that ignorance of the existence of a fact is far from being the same thing as knowledge of its non-existence. The Kent's Hole explorations supply an instructive example of this. For four years Mr. M'Enery sedulously explored the Cavern, and he recorded the fact that he found human flint tools. To precisely the same effect were the subsequent researches of Mr. Godwin-Austen, and, still later, of the Torquay Natural History Society. The British Association Committee laboured some months without advancing further-the flint implements were still the only indication of the presence of man. Before the end of six months, however, they met with a new class of evidence, and in their first Report, in 1865, were able to announce that "several small pieces of burnt bone had been met with in the

* Sir C. Lyell's "Elements of Geology." Sixth Edition, p. 183. 1865.

red loam." Before the end of another year, they observed an additional fact, and, in 1866, reported that "very many of the long bones had been split longitudinally," and that "it was difficult to suppose, either a priori, or from an examination of them, that less than human agency could have so divided them." Later still, at the end of twenty months from the beginning, the first bone implement was found; and at the next meeting of the Association, the Committee will have the pleasure of reporting the discovery of, at least, four of this new class of objects.

On taking a dispassionate view of all the facts, it does not appear to be necessary to relinquish the hope of finding the bones of the implement makers, or to abandon the belief in the high Antiquity of Man, even though Kent's Cavern may never yield any part of his osseous system.

Lastly. It must be unnecessary to remark that the time has by no means arrived when the Devonshire geologists can suspend their labours. There remain many unsolved problems within our borders. We still ask, "What is the age of the Crystalline Schists at the southern angle of our county? What is the precise chronology of our Limestones and associated rocks? Is there, east of Exmouth, a break in the Red rocks? Whence came the Budleigh Salterton pebbles? Whence also the Porphyritic Trap nodules so abundant in the Trias? Are our Greensands really of the age of the Gault? Whence the flints so numerous on our existing beaches? What is the history of our Superficial Gravels? Are there any indications of Glaciation in Devonshire? To what race did our Cave-Men belong? The solution of, at least, many of these questions must be reserved for another generation of enquirers; and to the young men of the present day I earnestly commend them.

NORTH DEVON CUSTOMS AND SUPERSTITIONS.

BY J. R. CHANTER.

DEVON in general, and North Devon in particular, has been very retentive of ancient customs, habits, and superstitions. Its folk-lore is especially interesting from its local form of fairy, the Devonshire pixy. But the most noticeable fact connected with North Devon is, not so much the variety or specially local character of its superstitions and vulgar customs, as of their being still generally interwoven with the daily life of the population. In most parts of the country it is necessary, in order to gather up local customs or legends, to seek out ancient crones or noted legend-tellers; but no one can live in this district, and mix much with the country folks, without finding a general belief in witchcraft still existing, and old customs and superstitions in full sway. A great many of these are, or were, common to all England, but having gradually died out in the more busy parts of the country, have continued here, most probably from the isolated nature of the district, and the stagnant character of the agricultural population.

It is not even necessary to go out of our homes to have very palpable proof of these superstitious practices; they are brought into our houses by domestic servants, who are mostly supplied from the agricultural districts, and who communicate them to our children. Curious revelations frequently occur in our Police and County Courts. The Judge of one of them very recently expressed his indignation at the cool way in which a man spoke of his wife having been "strook" several times; and it was necessary to be explained that he did not refer to her having been subjected to personal chastisement, but to her having had proper medical treatment for some ailment, by the part being "struck" with some imaginary remedy or charm.

The medical repute of charms is, in fact, very prevalent; any sudden cure is proverbially said to act like a charm. The seventh son of a seventh son is still in great request to "touch" for fits; and a case of this came out on a legal

enquiry only a week or two since. Warts and swellings are removed by various charms, such as skeins of thread knotted with the number of the warts to be removed, and struck across the warts as many times, and then buried; or striking with a witch elm wand, or a piece of stolen bacon; in each of which cases as the buried article decays so do the warts gradually decrease; or by depositing a given number of pebbles or peas in a bag, and losing it, but in this case the unfortunate finder gets the warts himself. But the most favourite remedy for warts, and indeed all swellings, is to have "words" said over them.

A portion of a rope with which a suicide has hanged himself is a wondrous charm against all accidents, when worn around the person.

The tooth ache is cured, and, what is more, perfect exemption from it for the future is supposed to be attained, by biting out a tooth from a corpse or skull; and very recently, a skeleton having been discovered at Croyde, the jaws were quickly denuded of all their teeth by the number of persons who hastened to the spot to bite them out. Every old woman has her remedy for boils, some of them of a very ludicrous nature. I was favoured with a new and rather ghastly recipe this week only, which I copy in full.

"To cure a friend of Boils.-Go into a churchyard on a dark night, and to the grave of a person who has been interred the day previous; walk six times round the grave, and crawl across it three times. If the sufferer from boils is a man, this ceremony must be performed by a woman, and the contrary. The charm will not work unless the night is quite dark.' There is an appended note. "This remedy was tried by a young woman in Georgeham churchyard," but with what result was not told; the inference was that it succeeded. I should add, that this recipe was given in full faith and belief of its efficacy.

Accidents, or any obscure ailments to cattle, are commonly attributed to their being witched, or "overlooked," as the term is, and can only be cured by a white witch; and it is well known that more than one person in North Devon gains his livelihood by acting professionally as a white witch, that is, the country people call him the white witch, though he professes to be a cattle doctor.

In fact, if any one gets into trouble in any way, it is quite a sufficient explanation that he has been "evil-wished and overlooked," and the white witch is forthwith called into requisition.