TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION C, 78L 
miles inland, and a film of salt has been found coating windows at a distance of 
twenty or thirty miles from the sea after storms, so that it is certain to impart a 
saltness to the soil over the land along the coast. 
Boring in the Red Marl at Ford, on the West of Bidston Hill. 
Another boring in the Red Marl has been in progress during the last two 
years on the east bank of the Fender, a brook running from south to north into 
the Birkett and finally into Wallasey Pool. The object of the boring was to 
obtain an additional supply of water for Birkenhead, and I am indebted to 
Mr. W. A. Richardson, C.E., for the following section of the strata passed. 
through. 
Feet 
Surface soil . : ; : 3 . . . . : i 
Boulder clay . : : : : 5 F : : e4S 
Sand and gravel - 3 3 ; : , : : . 16 
Red Marl. : 5 : ‘ , : 3 ; : . 454 
Keuper Sandstone . ‘ : 2 ‘ é : : . 244 
Fault rock ; : ; 3 : ‘ ; C : ’ 7 
Upper Soft Sandstone of the Bunter. : - J ‘lon 
900 
he boring was made with a revolving iron disc with steel chisels, two feet 
in diameter, suspended by a flat rope; but the cores brought up were only 4 inches 
across, most of the rock having been broken into fragments, sand and clay. The 
cores showed that the strata were horizontal. The Red Marl was found to be 
much harder than usual, and principally composed of tough argillaceous sand- 
stones and shales, nearly all of a red colour. Very little gypsum was found, and 
the entire absence of pseudomorphic crystals remarkable. It seems probable 
that the deposit was formed in deeper water than the Red Marl at Altcar. 
At Greasby, a village two miles west of the boring, there are some beds, about 
two inches thick, containing small ramifying tube-like cavities from 4, to 4 inch 
in diameter. They have been supposed to be at the base of the Red Marl, but 
were found at several horizons in the boring, and evidently do not indicate the 
base, so that the beds at Greasby may be considerably above it. The Red Marl 
ended at the depth of 516 feet below the surface, so that deducting 62 feet for the 
superficial deposits the thickness is 454 feet, being about double the amount it 
was expected to be. There was an abrupt change from the Red Marl into the 
underlying IKeuper Sandstone, which was penetrated to the depth of 244 feet, 
when a fault was crossed and the Upper Soft Sandstone of the Bunter proved to 
the depth of 135 feet. 
The Geological Survey Map of the district (Sheet 79, N.E.) distinguishes the 
Red Marl from the ‘ Waterstones’ at the base over the centre of Wirral, but it 
does not seem possible to have made such a distinction in South-west Lancashire, 
where both are included in the Red Marl. At Ford most of the marl is of an 
‘arenaceous character, while on the east of Liverpool the beds are softer and includ 
more shale andclay. It seems, however, that the Keuper Sandstone in Wirral is 
of less thickness than it is under Liverpool, and that the upper beds there are 
represented by the ‘ Waterstones.’ 
4. Erosion of the Sea Coast of Wirral. By G. H. Morton, F.G.S. 
The oldest maps of the coast of Wirral, the north-western extremity of Cheshire, 
afford very little information on the exact outline of the coast in former years. It 
was not until the publication of the 6-inch map of the Ordnance Survey in 1880 
that it became possible to make exact observations on the erosion of the coast. 
The late Sir James Picton, F.S.A., in 1846, was the first to direct attention to the 
waste of the land, but he had not made any personal investigation, and more 
recent writers on the subject have confined themselves to showing the incorrect- 
ness of some of his statements, rather than making original observations. The 
