516 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION GC. 
ice-sheet, In addition to the far-travelled boulders, a lengthy list of marine shells, 
mostly of an Arctic type, has been compiled, and the species Cyrena (Corbicula) 
fluminalis, a freshwater form, also abounds. An interesting collection of 
mammalian remains has been secured, and includes bones of Elephas prim- 
genius, Rhinoceros, Walrus, Red Deer, Bison priscus, Horse, and Bos. Some of 
these bear evidence of having been gnawed by the Hyena. It is thought that the 
shells and mammalian remains have been caught up by the moving ice-mass, and 
in this way incorporated in the moraine. 
5. On a Marine Peat from the Union Dock, Liverpool. 
By J. Lomas, F.G.S. 
During excavations in the Union Dock on the Mersey Docks and Harbour 
Board Estate in the south end of Liverpool a very remarkable peat band was 
discovered. Reckoning downwards from a datum line 3 feet above Old DockSill 
a section showed :— 
Sand with black carbonaceous bands . : 4 . 4 feet. 
Peat . F : ; - : : : : . 6 inches. 
Blue clay with rootlets - ; : : ; . 4 feet. 
Sand with thin bands of peat. : : . 2 feet 10 inches. 
Boulder clay . : ‘ ; ; ; F . 3 feet 2 inches. 
Bunter pebble beds. “ . ; : - . 8 feet+. 
The upper peat was entirely composed of marine plants, laminaria predomi- 
nating. On the fronds were numerous encrusting organisms, such as polyzoa, 
hydrozoa, the fry of young molluscs, &c. 
The lower peat, while consisting mainly of marine plants, contained a few 
drifted pieces of oak and other land plants. 
‘The sands accompanying the peat resemble those of the Mersey Bar, and 
besides the quartz which makes up the bulk of the deposit, contain zircon, garnet, 
tourmaline, dolomite, kyanite, rutile, staurolite, orthoclase felspar, biotite and 
muscovite, shell fragments, foraminifera, sponge spicules and polyzoa. 
The deposit was probably accumulated in a sheltered bay in the old estuary of 
the Mersey. 
The chief interest lies in the fact that peat may be formed from marine as well 
as from land plants. 
6. On a hitherto unnoticed Section of the Amaltheus spinatus Zone and 
the Transition Bed in the Middle Lias at Billesdon Coplow, Leicester- 
shire. By A. R. Horwoop. 
The author, after alluding to a section published by E. Wilson in the ‘ Geo- 
logical Magazine,’ 1889, p. 296, of the marlstone in the railway cutting at 
Tilton, Leicestershire, referred to a statement by that writer regarding it as the 
only exposure of the Amaltheus spinatus zone and Transition bed in the county. 
Some recent researches, however, have resulted in the discovery of these beds 
in a little quarry on the road between Tilton village (some distance from the 
cutting quoted) and Billesdon Coplow, forming part of the escarpment called Life 
Hill, and about 700 ft. O.D. 
There the very characteristic gasteropod and cephalopod zone of the Transi- 
tion bed is well developed; and so uniform is this horizon in position and faunal 
contents that the author wished to see more stress laid on it than had previously 
been done, as indicating the uppermost beds of the marlstone wherever found, 
being indeed a safe guide where other beds were wanting to denote this. 
Another feature to be noted in the higher part of the Rock-bed, hitherto 
unnoticed or but little emphasised by previous writers on Liassic geology, was 
the occurrence of a very well-marked encrinital limestone band, varying from 
1 foot to 18 inches, though often less, of a very hard nature, less subject to the 
