Extract

The first beach extends from Braunton, or Saunton, Burrows, (where its eastern limit is concealed by ancient drift sand) to Downend Point, round which it winds, and flanks the southern promontory of Croyd Bay. On the north coast of this little bay are vestiges of another beach, extending in patches from near the lime-kiln, to the bold and bluff headland called Baggy Point. In consequence of its prolongation into deeper water, and its having been consequently exposed to a more constant and heavy action of the sea, it is, in places, nearly all removed ; but enough remains to show, that it once extended a long way between Croyd Sands and Baggy Point. In both instances the beaches contain abundance of recent marine shells, and afford sufficiently compact and tough sandstone to be used in the construction of boundary walls. They frequently present the diagonal lines mentioned in the paper of Professor Sedgwick and Mr. Murchison, and so common in the new red sandstone.

That these beaches have been raised from five to ten feet, or that the level of the Atlantic has been depressed to that amount, I have no doubt; for on a careful examination of the slate rocks, at their immediate contact with the present base of the ancient beach, I found, in many places, countless Balani on the surface of the slates, yet so entangled and cemented in the sandstone, that, on detaching a mass of the latter, the Balani were torn off the slate. It