OF THE NORTH-WEST OF ENGLAND. 23 1 



Pendleton Section. 



|§ Rirer | Poltoa 



N.N.E. MS 6 IrweU. £ Road. 8.S.W. 



I 



Middle and apper coal-fields. 

 a and h represent Mr. Fitzgerald's old and new pits. 



This is met with about two miles north-west of Manchester. 

 It shows the upper new red sandstone at Oatbank, on the 

 Eccles New Road, dipping to the south-west at a moderate 

 angle. Drift covers up the district in the higher parts of 

 Pendleton ; but in the valley of the Irwell, Mr. Fitzgerald 

 has worked seams of coal belonging to the upper and middle 

 fields. These dip at an angle of about 18° to the south- 

 south-west, and outcrop against the upper new red sandstone, 

 which there lies in a deep down throw of the coal-measures of 

 full 3,200 feet in extent, of exactly the same character in all 

 respects as the Bradford and Ardwick fault before described. 

 The absolute thickness of the upper new red sandstone lying 

 in this fault is unknown, but it must be near 900 feet. At a 

 depth of 1 ,350 feet from the surface I have examined red clays 

 found in a level driven into it. They appeared like permian 

 marls, but I could find no fossils in them. They also resemble 

 some red marls seen higher up the valley of the Irwell, at 

 Giant's Seat Lock, near Ringley, which dip under the upper 

 new red sandstone there. Both these deposits of marls I 

 consider as permian, and the red sandstone seen by the side 

 of the great fault in the bed of the Irwell, near Prestolee Foot 

 Bridge, I take to be lower new red sandstone from its 

 characters. In its inferior portion there are also beds of red 

 clay with lenticular markings and thin beds of conglomerate ; 

 but I have not yet been able to prove that it dips under 

 the red marls of Giant's Seat Locks. For this reason I 

 have not placed the permian beds in the section shown in 

 the woodcut. 



