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Woodcburch section I found the pseudomophous crystals of chloride of 

 sodium, described by H. E. Strickland, Esq., F.G.S., in the ninth 

 volume of 1 he Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society ; they are 

 found on the under surfaces of the laminae of marl, not being crystalline 

 in their character, they are composed of the same substance, and pass 

 gradually into it. The crystals are supposed to have been formed in 

 salt water marshes communicating with the sea and spring tides. The 

 sea water having been left by a retreating tide, had time to evaporate 

 and to deposit crystals of chloride of sodium. When the tide after- 

 wards returned to the spot, the water, not being saturated, would dissolve 

 the saline crystals, leaving cubical cavities in the hardened mud con- 

 taining them, which would be then tilled with a new layer of the " red 

 marl." Their occui'euce so generally in the Enghsh keuper seem to 

 indicate a very shallow condition of the sea, often laid bare during the 

 intervals between the tides, and having been discovered in many 

 localities, from the Mersey to the southern extention of the keuper, 

 they furnish, with the ripple marks and reptilian footmarks, additional 

 evidence of the shallow waters and subsiding sea bottom of the upper 

 new red sandstone period. 



A little way to the east, at the base of the Bidston range, the " upper 

 soft red and variegated sandstone" crops out ; it here consists of yellow 

 sandstone, being the upper bed of the sub-division. The yellow sand- 

 stone is seen reposing upon red beds of the same rock at the Eed 

 Noses, near New Brighton, and of the latter there is a good section 

 appearing from under the yellow beds to the west of Oxton, where it is 

 a uuiform soft red sandstone, without pebbles or partings of the beds. 

 This range of hills is capped with the " waterstoues," consisting of 

 white, yellow, and red sandstones, with beds of clay or marl. The 

 basement, however, consists of thick beds of sandstones, containing 

 quantities of quartz, pebbles, and nodules of clay. These seem to be 

 connected with the conglomerates, breccias, and calcareous cornstones 

 of other localities, which are referred to the base of the keuper. The 

 strata generally dip to the east in the lino of section, or rather north- 

 Wards of that point at very slight angles, 2 to 5 degrees. The lower 

 beds of " waterstones," the conglomerates, can be seen at Bidston and 

 Oxton, the middle at Stourtou, the upper beds at Greasby and Upton. 

 The " muschelkalk" of German and French geologists would come in 

 between the beds at this part of the section — the " upper soft red," 

 lAc. &c. and the " waterstones." The junction between these sub-di- 

 pisions can be examined with more minuteness than that of any of tlic 

 others ; but there is no trace of any period laaving elapsed after the 

 snnination of the former and before the commoncomcnt of the latter : 



