392 
NATURE 
[ Sez. 15, 1870 
as 
in the new excavations for the Liverpool Waterworks’ 
upper reservoir, above Alance Bridge, north of Rivington. 
A little further west another bed of black shale occurs, 
apparently on the same horizon as that from which the 
Geological Survey Map (six-inch map, Lancashire, sheet 
78) records the presence of Goxiafites. These and other 
fossils also found in the shales forming the roof of two 
coal-seams, occurring between the second and third grits. 
The shales dividing the latter grit are also fossiliferous in 
two instances in Lancashire, and Govzatites may be found 
in the shales between the third and fourth grits, at Old 
Kates Dingle and Shore Brook, below Noon Hill, east of 
Rivington (reached from Adlington Station). They reach, 
I should say, a thickness of 600 feet, and contain two thin 
coal-seams. The Kinderscout grit, though nearly 1,000 
feet thick, appears to be almost devoid of organic remains ; 
but the occasional fragments of S¢zgmaria testify to the 
existence of land during the period of its deposit, as do 
also the thin seams of coal. 
The Coal Measures.—These are so well known through 
the various survey memoirs of Professor Hull,* and papers 
of Mr. E. W. Binney, F.R.S., that it is needless for me to 
describe them. They are divided into three divisions : the 
upper is devoid of coal, and is absent in South-west Lan- 
cashire; the middle coal-measures contain all the valuable 
coals, the best being that at the base, known as the Arley 
Mine, which is perhaps equal to any coal in England. 
The sixth seam, above the Arley, is the celebrated Wigan 
“ cannel coal :” it is three feet thick at that town, thinning 
out in every direction, with Wigan as a centre, as shown 
by Mr. Hull. 
The Lower Coal Measures, or Gannister beds, from 
their containing siliceous concretions, locally called 
“ Gannisters,” have five or six workable coals which are 
known as Mountain Mines. Coal-measures occur at 
Neston on the west coast of Cheshire, and again at 
Croxteth Park, near Liverpool, and it is probable that 
they underlie the whole of the Triassic rocks of Wirral, 
and of part of Liverpool itself. 
Permian.—No geologist should leave Liverpool without 
visiting the two Permian outliers, discovered by Professor 
Hull, at Skillaw Clough and in Bentley Brook, Bispham 
(north-east of Ormskirk) ; they consist of sandstones, 
marls, and magnesian limestone.+ 
Trias, or New Red Sandstone.—This is divided into the 
following subdivisions ;— 
= . Grey and Red Marls_ . . 1,000 feet 
ase CSE Lower Keuper Sandstone. 400 ,, 
\ Upper Mottled Sandstone. 500 ,, 
Bunter Series Pebble-Beds* 1%, 271%) (sy a1") 7800) 15) 
Lower Mottled. ... . « 100 5; 
The Lower Mottled Sandstone is best seen in the 
Liverpool district, at Eastham, on the Cheshire side of 
the Mersey, where it forms a cliff capped by the Peddle 
Beds. The latter are well seen in the quarries at Everton, 
above Liverpool ; they are generally stained a deep brick- 
red with peroxide of iron, and contain seams of quartz- 
pebbles running along the lines of current-bedding seams 
_ of grey and red marl, which also occurs in small pockets 
* Mem, Geol. Surv., “Geology of Oldham,” “ Geology of Wigan,” 
"Geology of Bolton-le-Moors,” ‘“Geology of Prescot.” 
t See “Geology ef Wigan,” p. 27, and Geol, Sury. Map, 89, S,W, 
& 
in the rock. The Upper Mottled Sandstone is, asa ruleg 
pebbleless, much false-bedded, streaked and mottled in 
its middle portion, yellow above, and deep bright red 
below. The latter beds are well seen at the mouth ot 
Bromborough Pool, near Birkenhead ; the middle beds 
at Ormskirk, where the celebrated section, first described 
by Mr. Hull,* occurs, where nearly level beds of conglo- 
meratic Lower Keuper Sandstone rest on the denuded 
upturned edges of the variegated beds of the Upper 
Mottled Sandstone: it is exposed in the railway cutting 
leading towards St. Helen’s, a little east of the town. : 
Lower Keuper Sandstone.—tThe base of this sandstone 
in this as in other districts, is extremely pebbly, and con- 
sists of hard grit, not unlike some of the beds of the mill- 
stone grits, and like them, and the sands and gravels of the 
Middle Drift Period, is much false-bedded. The middle 
portion consists of fine-grained freestones, separated by 
thin seams of grey marl, supporting water : these are well 
seen in the railway cutting at Orrel (east of Waterloo),t 
first described by the writer in the Survey Memoir on the 
district. The Labyrinthodon bed (3 to 4 feet thick) occurs 
near the base of this part of the Keuper Sandstone: it is 
best seen at Storeton, near the windmill (on the Cheshire 
side of the river) : many fine footprints may be seen in the 
Liverpool museums. In the Orrel Railway cutting, mag- 
nesia is found to occur in the shale, as well as pseudo- 
morphous crystals of salt, which also occur in the shales 
at the top of the sandstone, or at the base of the marls, 
whichever way they may be taken; for the sandstones 
shales and marls, are in reality only one series graduall 
passing from the one into the other, as the sea grew shallow- 
er and shallower, and became supersaturated with salt, un- 
til at length the sea became a salt lake. From this sequence 
there is, however, one exception in this district, which I 
have not noticed elsewhere. A conglomeratic bed occurs 
near the very top of the Keuper Sandstone, immediately 
below the horizon of the shales ; the pebbles consist of 
quartz, and are apparently derived from the same source 
as those occurring in some of the millstone-grit beds. The 
existence of round pebbles in a deposit proves either th : 
proximity of a coast line or the shallowness of the wate 
at the period of deposition ; for unless the water is shallow, 
currents, I know by experience, have not the power to 
move pebbles. The Trias, as a whole, appears to have 
been formed during a period in which subsidence hardly 
kept pace with the deposition of sands and clays brought 
down by rivers from continental lands, This upper pebble 
bed would appear to have been thrown down at a mome 
when the movement of subsidence was greater than usual, 
causing islands of quartzites, or possibly of millstone grit, 
containing quartz-pebbles. 3 
Keuper Marls—This division attains an immense 
thickness in the country between Liverpool and Southport ; 
but is so deeply covered with drift, glacial and post- 
glacial, that sections are very rare, Much of it, like the 
northern end of Cheshire, is scarcely above high-wat 
mark, forming a low-level plain covered with peat-moss 
between it and the sea intervenes a tract of blown sand 
forming dunes or “hoes ” as they are locally called, whicl 
is traversed by the railway from Liverpool to Southport 
* Mem. Geol. Surv. ‘Geology of Wigan.” By E. Hull, F.R.S. 
+ Mem. Geol. Sury., “Description of go S.E.,” and “* Geology of th 
country between Liverpool and Southport,” By C, E, De Rance, FG. Se 
| 
