THE GEOLOGY OF MOW COP, ETC. 145 



interesting character. At the latter place some wells have 

 been sunk through the drift beds (150ft.) down to the 

 rock, or the second Bunter sandstone of the Trias. Two 

 of these wells have borings into this rock to the depth of 

 100 feet, when a copious supply of excellent water has 

 been the result. About half-a-mile south of Macclesfield, 

 near the Copper Works, owing partly to a transverse fault 

 across the country to Alderley Edge, northward of this 

 fault for some distance, all the red marl and second keuper 

 sandstones have been removed by denudation in former 

 ages, leaving that space occupied by the 150ft. of drift 

 deposits upon which the town of Macclesfield is chiefly 

 built. After crossing this fault and the eastern border of 

 Danes Moss, the railway rests upon the red marl almost 

 all the way to the Mow Cop station, with the fault in 

 close proximity on the left, and during its formation, when 

 cutting some sections through the superficial drift beds near 

 Congleton, marine shells were discovered. 



FOSSILS OF THE CARBONIFEROUS STRATA ABOUT 

 MACCLESFIELD. 



Only calamites and aviculapecten in the black shales of 

 the Yoredale rocks in Ratcliffe wood. In the third grit , 

 sandstones, lepidodendron, calamites, stigmaria, sigillaria, 

 conifers, halonia with dendritic impressions. In the roofs 

 of some of the small seams of grit coal are found gonia- 

 tites and aviculapecten. In the lower coal measures 

 sandstones on Kerridge, calamites, conifers, equisetums, 

 halonia, favularia, ferns, ulodendron, bothrodendron, lepido- 

 dendron, stigmaria, sigillaria, and traces of fucoids with 

 impressions of raindrops, traces of annelids and ripple 

 marks. In the shales of the lower coal measures avicu- 

 lapecten, goniatites, anthrocosia, lingula, scales of fish, and 

 L 



