Binney on Toot-marks in the Millstone-grit of Tintwhistle. 479 



and adopted by M. Elie de Beaumont, and have received much 

 confirmation from recent researches into the conduct of water under 

 pressure at high temperatures, its power of taking silex into solu- 

 tion, &c. 



The author further asks the attention of geologists to the ideas 

 developed by him in the same early works, and founded on actual 

 and careful observations, as to the change of position occasioned in 

 the component crystals of a matter moving in the pasty state here 

 attributed to lavas and other plutonic rocks, during their emission 

 or elevation under extreme pressure. He produced examples from 

 the ribboned trachytes and pearlstones of Italy, Hungary, and 

 Mexico. He considers gneiss to be granite elongated by a powerful 

 lateral squeeze, probably at the time of its expulsion ; and mica- 

 schist to be the extreme result of the same action upon the 

 lateral bands or selvages of the extruded mass or great dyke. This 

 he thinks a more probable origin than the usual raetamorphic theory 

 of the melting and reconsolidation of sedimentary strata, though the 

 one does not wholly exclude the other. At all events he considers 

 the evidence presented in the peculiarities of texture, structure, and 

 position of the laminated crystalhne rocks to be conclusive as to 

 their having been squeezed, flattened, and drawn out in the direction 

 of their upcast, and attributes this process to the same elevatory 

 movements which have thrust them up, and often forced them into 

 wrinkled foldings on the grandest as well as on the most minute 

 scale. To this same rearrangement of their crystalline plates or 

 flakes under pressure he attributes also their lamellar cleavage. He 

 refers to Mr. Sorby's recent paper and experiments on slaty cleavage 

 as confirming these views. Tiie paper ends by recommending the 

 more earnest study of the dynamics of geology, which has in this 

 country been perhaps of late years somewhat neglected. 



May 7, 1856. — Daniel Sharpe, Esq., President, in the Chair. 



The following communications were read : — 



1. " On some supposed Foot-marks in the Millstone-grit of Tint- 

 whistle, Mottram en Longdendale, Cheshire." By E. W. Binney, 

 Esq., F.G.S. 



In a quarry in the lowest portion of the millstone-grit, — certainly 

 1000 feet down in that formation, and very near the underlying 

 limestone- shale, — a scries of five large impressions, lying in a straight 

 line and nearly on the rise and dip of the strata, were met with. The 

 strata dip towards 80° west of south at an angle of 12°. The dimen- 

 sion of tlie impressions somewhat varies, but they are much of a size. 

 Two of them, the longest, measure each 13 inches in length at their 

 bottom, and 17 inches above ; their breadth being respectively 4 and 

 3^ inches at the bottom, and 8 and 9 inches above; their dejjth is 

 about 3 inches. The distances between the impressions, measuring 

 from the middle of one to the middle of another, is 2 feet 10^ inches 

 in every instance. The impressions differ slightly in shape, but the 

 bulk of the wet sand that iiad been originally displaced out of the 

 holes was the same in each instance, whether the imj)ressions were 

 deep and short, or shallow and long ; and the sand removed was 



