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(called, I think, Flaybrick,) attached to Bidston ; in 

 fact, a spur or projection of the Wirral ridge, which 

 makes its commencement or termination abruptly about 

 this position. The somewhat singular fact was noticed 

 respecting it, that its escarpment or steep side is on the 

 east, or towards the river; so that the ridge has thus two 

 escarpments, one of which is a phenomenon, the converse 

 of what is presented in the other ridges of this district, 

 and of those generally in Great Britain. It is well known, 

 for example, that England, as a whole, is elevated on the 

 west side, and depressed on the east ; that the bold ridges 

 and abrupt escarpments of the country occur in Wales, 

 while, on the contrary, the gradual declivity is to the east, 

 till we come to the agricultural districts of Essex, Buck- 

 ingham, York, and Durham, the marshes of Cambridge 

 and Lincoln, the alluvial deposits of Norfolk and Suffolk, 

 and the Dogger-bank in the German ocean. But it is not 

 so well known that this arrangement prevails in minute 

 portions of the country as well as on a large scale, and that 

 the ridges of any given district invariably, or almost inva- 

 riably, exhibit their escarpments on the west side, and their 

 general slope on the east. We are quite prepared, there- 

 fore, for one of the phenomena presented at Bidston, but 

 not for the other, and it becomes a matter of serious 

 inquiry, whether the escarpment on the bluff of Flay- 

 brick be an original exception to this rule, or the 

 peculiarity be owing to mechanical agency, natural, or 

 artificial. 



At the bottom of the hill is an extensive deposit of a 

 peculiar kind of clay, geologically called diluvium, common 

 all over Cheshire and Lancashire, and used extensively in 

 brick making. Near the foot of the cliff is an accumulation 

 of debris; while up its sides, and along the little projecting 

 ferrates, there is an accumulation of earth, and a considerable 

 growth of brnsbwood. But the vertical portions of the cliff 



