INVESTIGATION OF FAUNA AND FLORA OF TRIAS OF BRITISH ISLES. 223 



The beds of white clay in which the prints were made are so thin as 

 to be hardly discernible on the freshly worked face, but become readily 

 traceable, after a few years' weathering, when a scant vegetation has taken 

 root in the softer places. 



The quarries in the neighbourhood of Runcorn extend about a mile 

 along the escarpment of Lower Keuper, forming the crest of the hills 

 facing the estuary of the Mersey from Runcorn to "Weston. 



The sandstone is of coarser grain than at Storeton, and of a dull red 

 colour ; but the position and nature of the footprint bed are about the same, 

 and it can be traced the whole length of the hill until it passes beneath 

 the floor of the principal quarry now worked. The spoil banks covering 

 the larger area of the old quarries still yield numerous examples, and in 

 spite of the coarse nature of the stone and the deformation of its surface 

 by desiccation, cracks, kc. some very perfect specimens have been pre- 

 served. While the larger forms are less plentiful than at Storeton, the 

 smaller ones are more numerous and varied. 



There is a second bed, a considerable distance below the footprint bed, 

 which yields very many curious markings, but none that can be said with 

 certainty to be of organic origin. 



At Lymm the quarries in the neighbourhood are mostly closed, and 

 the spoil banks covered with vegetation. 



Near Tarporley and in Delamere ForeM beds which have yielded foot- 

 prints are found. They occur at horizons rather higher in the Keuper 

 than those at Storeton and Runcorn. 



Shropshire. — -The quarries at Grimsill, Shropshire (easily reached 

 from Yorton station on the Crewe and Shrewsbury Railway), are very 

 extensively worked, and yield from time to time not only numerous 

 footprints but remains of rhynchosaurus. 



They are very like the quarries at Storeton both in the character of the 

 stone and the position of the beds. 



Warwickshire. — Near Warwick the quarries at the Coten End in the 

 Lower Keuper are not much worked now. The small but very interesting 

 quarry at Shrewly, a mile or so from Hatton Junction, on the Great West- 

 ern line, is in the Upper Keuper Sandstones, with the marls above and 

 below. Footprints are frequently found, and the remains of invertebrates. 



Staffordshire. — Traces of footprints have been noticed in quarries at 

 Alton and HoUington, in North Staffordshire, in the building stones of the 

 Lower Keuper. 



In South Staffordshire footprints are very numerous in the quarries 

 along the outcrop of the harder beds of the Keuper a few miles north- 

 west of Wolverhampton. Some of the sections have recently been 

 described by Mr. Beeby Thompson, F.G.S.' 



Scotland. — The footprint-yielding quarries in Dumfriesshire do not 

 seem to be much worked now ; the footprint beds are described as extend- 

 ing through a thickness of about forty-live feet (see Dr. Duncan's paper 

 referred to above). 



For an account of the quarries at Elgin see Huxley's monograph, 

 previously referred to ; also ' Reptiliferous Sandstones of Elgin,' by 

 Rev. George Gordon, LL.D., ' Trans. Geological Society Edinburgh,' 

 February 1892. 



• 'Some Trias Sections in South Staffordshire,' by Beeby Thompson. F.G.S.. fycnl. 

 Maf) , Dec. iv., vol. ix., May 190:2. 



