Traces of an Jntergqlactal Land-surface 
at Crefue. 
BY D. MACKINTOSH, F.GS. 
Read March 4th, 1880. 
URING a number of visits to Crewe Railway Station in 
1879-80, I had opportunities of examining sections and 
specimens of an exceedingly fine and (when damp) more or less 
flexible kind of book or leaf-clay. They were exposed in 
excavations for underground passages and drains. I did not see 
. the bottom of the leaf-clay, but Mr. Anprews (Assistant 
Engineer) informed me that he had seen it resting on quicksand. 
The clay, within a vertical extent of about a foot, graduated into 
very typical and undisturbed upper Boulder-clay, about ten feet 
in thickness. 
This leaf-clay is evidently on the same horizon as numerous 
similar deposits which may be seen in many parts of Cheshire 
and Lancashire, at or towards the base of the upper Boulder-clay, 
and which range as low down as the present sea-level. In 
many places these deposits show ripple-marks of a kind which 
are usually formed in very shallow water, though I did not see 
any ripple-marks on the clay at Crewe Railway Station. 
The leaf-clay under notice is the finest of any yet examined 
by the well-known foraminiferist, Mr. Sippatx, of Chester, who 
found in it a shallow or brackish-water species of Foraminifera, 
namely, Polystomella striatopunciata. The lamine of which the 
clay is composed are generally very thin, but they can easily be 
separated, owing to an intervening sprinkling of sand, which, at 
intervals, may have been distributed by shallow currents of 
water, or blown by wind (see segue/./ 
One of the most striking features of the leaf-clay is the extent 
to which the surfaces of the lamine are pitted. I have little 
doubt that some of the pits (especially those steeper on one side 
