THE NATURALIST. 



VOL. III., No. XXL— JUNE, 1838. 



A SKETCH OF THE NEW RED SANDSTONE FORMATION.* 

 By the Rev. Thomas Dwyer, M. A., and Geoege Thompson, Esq. 

 The New Red Sandstone in its composition consists entirely of the abraded 

 and disintegrated fragments of older rocks, the harder and less worn portions of 

 which abundantly occur as pebbles of larger or smaller size, rarely if ever exceed- 

 ing^ in dimensions a diameter of about six inches. The New Red Sandstone 

 strata are generally inclined to the horizon at very small angles, and form hills 

 of but inconsiderable elevation. In these two latter circumstances it is peculiarly 

 and remarkably distinct from all older formations, which are almost always 

 found inclined to the horizon at very high angles, and which attain the greatest 

 elevations about the level of the sea. 



In the neighbourhood of Liverpool the dip of the New Red Sandstone varies 

 from about 6 to 7 degrees to from 10 to about 13 degrees ; in the peninsula of 

 Wirral the dip is very uniformly about 6 or 7 degrees ; on the east side of the river 

 Mersey it varies more considerably, and we think we may say without exception 

 that this dip is always to some point of the compass between N.E. and S.E. 

 At the time the New Red Sandstone was formed, the relative positions of land 

 and water were undoubtedly exceedingly different from what they are now. The 

 whole area of England south of the Cumberland and Westmoreland hills and east 

 of the Welsh mountains, together with an extensive portion of the adjoining 

 continent of Europe, must at this ancient period have been the bed of the ocean ; 

 and yet there must at the same time have been great and extensive tracts of 

 land of primary formation above the level of the ocean, to account for the 

 millions upon millions of cubic yards of materials which were then' constantly 

 being abraded and worn away from the main land, and embedded in the ad- 

 jacent seas, to the accumulation of strata of many thousand feet in thickness. 

 Yet we find now no traces of such extensive tracts of land : the only primary 

 formations at present existing in these neighbourhoods are of an isolated character, 

 extremely limited in geographical extent, and incapable of furnishing anything 



* These pages are extracted from a paper read at the January meeting of the Liverpool Natural 

 History Society. — Ed. 



VOL. ill. — NO. xxr. 2 Q 



