The Agecroft Valley. 207 



whole of the immediate neighbourhood of the spot on 

 which Manchester now stands was once deep Sea. At 

 the latest period of that marvellous marine dominion, 

 blocks of ice, containing boulders, floated in it, and 

 wherever great heaps of sand are exposed, there do we 

 behold the remains of ancient beaches or sand-banks, 

 many of which were cut through by the water, while 

 others are charged with pebbles that had been rounded 

 by rolling over and over upon some ancient shore. Tlje 

 higher parts of the surrounding country, as at Greenfield, 

 &c., are free from the deposit of " Drift ;" the lower parts, 

 on the other hand, are so thoroughly covered up that 

 the underlying rock can only be seen where cuttings have 

 been made, or where pits have been sunk, or where 

 rivers have worn a channel. Hollows of rocks have 

 often afforded a lodgment, however, for deposits of 

 Drift at much greater elevations than has been the case 

 with sloping rocks of a lower level. Valuable as are the 

 subjacent rocks to man, the Drift is equally so. Take 

 but the single instance of that portion of one of the 

 higher deposits, called the f( Boulder-clay," (in some parts 

 of our neighbourhood ninety feet thick,) since it is this 

 which supplies the material used for bricks. 



While such is the general character of the deposits 

 around Manchester, at Agecroft is well shown how the 

 first settlings of gravel and sand often themselves became 

 covered with soil at a later period, the material being 

 brought down and diffused by existing rivers, and in 



