A long interval of time appears to have followed the laying down of the Culm measures, during which so vast an amount of shattered rock was worn away that when the beds that come next in order--the New Red Sandstones--were formed, they were, in places, deposited directly upon the Devonian, the superincumbent carboniferous or Culm strata having entirely disappeared. The New Red Sandstones occur chiefly in the east of the county, where their lower beds fill up old creeks and valleys in the carboniferous system; and they extend northwards from the coast past Exeter as far as Holcombe Regis, forming broad bands on either side of the Exe, characterised by the high fertility of the overlying soil, and with one long spur traversing the heart of the county, past Crediton and Exbourne, with isolated patches round Hatherleigh, and with another and less extended prolongation a few miles west of Tiverton. The Lower New Red consists of clays, conglomerates, red breccias and sands, in which occur many outcrops of trap, the evidence, not only of numerous eruptions, but of eruptions extending over a long period of time. These beds contain no fossils, except in fragments of older rocks. The Middle New Red, in the form of thick beds of red marl and red and white limestones, well seen on the south coast, is covered in turn by the Upper New Red, with beds of pebbles, some of which are derived from the Devonian and even from the Silurian. In this formation, near Sidmouth, have been found the remains of two remarkable reptiles, the _Hyperodapedon_, a strange form allied to the existing tuatera lizard of New Zealand and in England only known elsewhere in the formations of Warwickshire, and the _Labyrinthodon_, so named from the intricate structure of its teeth, and also called _Cheirotherium_, from the hand-like impressions of its feet. [Illustration: Footprints of _Cheirotherium_, New Red Sandstone] The Rhaetic beds are not well seen in Devonshire. They occur on the coast between Lyme Regis and the mouth of the Axe, and in the estuary of that river, but are much hidden by landslips of cretaceous formations from above. One layer, consisting of black shale, with bivalve shells such as _Cardium_ and _Pecten_, contains also a bone-bed, with remains of fish, such as _Acrodus_ and _Hybodus_. The former is represented by its blunt teeth, and the latter, which was a huge, shark-like creature, by its long and formidable-looking fin-spines. The Lower Lias is exposed in a narrow strip of coast from the Devonshire border to the mouth of the Axe, and to a greater extent in the valley of the river above Axminster. It has been divided on the coast into four distinct zones, each characterised by its own particular species of ammonite.