a ® 
Sepd. 15, 1870] NATURE 391 
is a herbarium, a fair collection of butterflies and 
beetles and a collection of fungi from the Liverpool 
district, and a good collection of zoophytes from 
Bootle, near Liverpool. There is also a small collec- 
tion of ethnographical objects, weapons, Indian remains, 
flint axes, &c., and the usual miscellaneous objects 
of a local museum. There is a large stuffed specimen 
of the sea-clephant from the South Shetland Islands, 
which is valuable, as the species is yearly becoming 
much rarer. It seems a pity that some arrangement 
‘could not be made between the two museums, so that this 
One could be lightened of some of its heterogeneous con- 
tents, and more room given for a better display of some 
Special collections. Besides this, those who are in- 
terested in mineralogy should not fail to visit the J/ed?- 
cal Institution, in Hope-street, where Phillips’s mineral 
€ollection is well exhibited. Theré is also the Miseum 
of the Royal Infirmary School of Medicine, which is 
more likely to please those interested in medical pursuits 
| than the general public. 
- To those botanically inclined, the extensive Botanical 
Gardens in Edge Lane will be very attractive. They cover 
an extent of about eleven or twelve acres, and are very 
| tastefully laid out, and the large conservatories contain 
many fine and choice exotics, 
_ Those who are interested in the practical application 
| OF science to the requirements of the present day, should 
fiot fail to visit the Liverpool Sewage Utilisation Works 
at Sandhills, These are open to all members of the Asso: 
Ciation, and will be found to afford much practical know- 
Tedge on a subject that is yearly attracting more attention. 
" The Liverpool scientific societies, though they have 
| existed many years, have failed to attract very much 
| attention, or to become prominently known. The most 
| important of these is the Lancashireand Cheshire Historic 
| Society, which was started about 1847, as a purely anti- 
socicty in all matters relating to the two counties, 
Tt has published a set of transactions containing much 
valuable information ; but of later years it has enlarged 
3 scope and taken in other branches of scientific know: 
dge, with a result, we fear, not commensurate with the 
shes of its promoters. Zhe Liverpool Philosophical 
ctety, and the Liverpool Geological Soctety, unlike the 
lar societies in Manchester and Leeds, are but little 
(own outside the city in which they hold their 
Meetings. 
Soon after Owens College was founded in Manchester, 
@ somewhat similar college, called Queen’s College, was 
farted in Liverpool; but whether owing to lack of energy 
ir good management on the -part of its directors, or from 
he overpowering influence of the old-established Collegiate 
Stitution, it has certainly failed in approximating in any 
ection to the national importance and value that the 
ormer college has obtained. 
~ In some degree compensating for these failures, Liver- 
ol possesses a very extensive and much-patronised Field 
laturaiists’’ Club, which does a great deal by weekly 
Cursions to infuse into its members a taste for natural 
ence and out-of-door scientific work, and there is little 
ubt but that from all its members the British Associa- 
1 will receive a hearty welcome; and let us hope that 
om this year’s meeting may date an increased impetus 
0 Scierice in thé neighbourhood; j. PE: 
NOTES ON THE GEOLOGY OF THE COUNTRY 
AROUND LIVERPOOL 
HE following brief notes on some of the points of 
geological interest may perhaps be of use to geo- 
logists from the South of England visiting the British 
Association’s Meeting at Liverpool. 
The tract of country lying between the rivers Dee and 
Mersey, known as the peninsula of Wirral, is composed 
of Triassic rocks, forming a series of undulating ridges 
and valleys, running parallel with the strike of the rocks, 
The ayerage elevation of the crest of the hills is about 150 
feet, and they, as well as the valleys, are more or less 
covered with glacial drifts. The northward prolongation 
of the hills and valleys is abruptly terminated by a broad 
plain, but little raised above the sea-level, which forms the 
seaward portion of the Hundred of Wirral. This plain, 
which is composed of peat partly covered with alluvium, 
is drained by the River Birket, which flows eastward 
along its whole length, from a little south of Hoylake, 
until it falls into Wallasey Pool, an arm of the River 
Mersey, which separates the tract of comparatively high 
land known as Wallasey (anciently an island) from the 
Triassic hills south of the Pool. 
Crossing the Mersey, the town of Liverpool is found to 
rest on a continuation of the Triassic hills south of the 
river, but more deeply covered with drift, which has in 
most cases so entirely filled up the valleys that the whole 
of the Coal-measure and Triassic districts of south-west 
Lancashire are one yast plain, surrounding a central 
nucleus formed by the spurs of the Pennine Chain, com- 
posed of the Millstone Grit. 
The latter formation, on the borders of the Lancashire 
coal-field, reaches an average thickness of 5,000 feet, and 
is composed of four great beds of grit, divided from each 
other by thick beds of shale. These beds are known as the 
Rough Rock, or first grit; the Haslingden flags, or 
second grit ; the third grit; and the Kinder Scout, or 
fourth grit. The first and fourth grits are generally 
coarse, conglomerative, and massive ; the third, as a tule, 
finer and not conglomeratic—both it and the fourth grit 
are often divided into two, three, and even more beds 
of thick seams of shale, which thin, wedge out, and thicken 
in the most irregular and local manner. In fact, though 
the Millstone Grit, as a whole, maintains a general average 
thickness in any special area, its members in defail appear 
to be ever changing places in relative consequence with 
each other, proving the shallowness of the sea, the 
proximity of land, and the existence of currents laden with 
different materials, sand and pebbles washed from those 
deep-seated .quartzites which raised their heads above 
the sea at the time of the deposition of the grit in 
the area now occupied by the Pennine Chain.* Workable 
coal-seams occur in the first and third grits, and thin 
Seams in the fourth ; associated with them are shales in 
which a flora and fauna of about 30 species occur, the 
same species recurring in the different seams of shale: i8 
species occur in the shales of the “ Feather-edge” coal} 
(in the Rough Rock); amongst them are Calamites 
Suckowii, and Pecopteris arborescens. The former species I 
recently found in some shales of the second grit, exposed 
* Prof. E. Hull, F.R.S., Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., August, 1868, 
+ This coal is described by Mr. E. W. Binney, F.R.S., in the Trans, 
Geol. Soc, Man. vol. i.; by Prof. E. Hull, F.R.S., in Geol. Surv. Men. 
“On the Geology of Oldham,” and in the “ Geology of Bolton-le-Moors,” 
