Manchester Memoirs, Vol. Iviii. (19 14), No. 8. ii 



of salt from the strata underlying the bed rocks of the 

 mere, as certainly applying to the main southerly basin. 

 The small northerly depression is just as certainly a 

 subsequent formation, and the barrier separating it from 

 the southerly basin must at one time have marked the 

 north boundary of the mere. We have not yet determined 

 how this depresssion was formed. The bottom is com- 

 posed entirely of peat, and the banks of the mere 

 surrounding it are composed of SpJiagnuni peat overlaid 

 in parts by clay derived from the surrounding country. 

 Before the formation of the second depression, the banks 

 of the north end of the mere must have been a peat bog 

 and the birch wood now to be found on the Gale Bog 

 marks the highest development of the peat. The subse- 

 quent depression of this peat mass may have been formed 

 in a similar way to the main basin of the lake, i.e., by 

 subsidence due to the removal of salt from the underlying 

 rocks, or it may have been formed in a manner comparable 

 to that suggested for the formation of the shallow pools 

 which have been and are being formed at the present time 

 in the Delamere Forest country, where salt is not known 

 to occur. The character of these forest pools differs 

 essentially from that of the northern and eastern meres, and 

 Hodge '^ suggests their formation in the following way. A 

 Sphagnum peat bog has first developed on the surface 

 sand which lies above the Trias in this neighbourhood. 

 Subsequently, by the action of superficially subterranean 

 water, this sand has been slowly washed away, resulting in 

 the subsidence of the peat and the formation of a shallow 

 pool. Mr. R. S. Adamson hopes to be able to decide this 

 point, but his researches are not yet completed, and a 

 definite statement of the origin of the northerly basin of 

 the mere cannot yet be made. 



* Lancashire Naturalist, April and May, 191 2. 



