G. H. Morton — The Bunter and Keuper near Liverpool. 497 



along its extent of fifteen miles ; l and the average of the differential 

 uplift between Boston and Montreal, a distance of about 250 miles, 

 is approximately two feet per mile. 



North-western Europe also bad a much greater altitude during 

 the later part of the Tertiary era, in which Scandinavia and the 

 British Isles suffered vast denudation, with erosion of fjords and 

 channels that are now submerged 500 to 800 feet beneath the sea. 2 

 Probably many of these submarine channels are now more or less 

 filled with the glacial drift, so that valleys originally descending 

 continuously toward the margin of the continental plateau have 

 become in some portions changed to enclosed basins. The maximum 

 Preglacial elevation must have exceeded the depth of the Skager 

 Rack between Denmark and Norway, which is 2580 feet, with 

 a deep submerged valley running from it west and north to the 

 abyssal Arctic Ocean. 3 



Under the weight of its ice-sheet, the glaciated area of Europe, 

 like that of North America, sank mostly to a somewhat lower level 

 than it now has, the maximum depression being on the coast of 

 Norway, about 580 feet. 4 From this depression Scandinavia has 

 gradually risen, with pauses during which beaches were formed ; 

 aud the uplift of that country continues to the present day, as of 

 the region about Hudson Bay. 5 



III. — Notes on the Bunter and Keuper Formations in the 

 Country around Liverpool. 6 



By G. H. Morton, F.G.S. 



THE Bunter and Keuper formations of the Trias are very fully 

 developed in the country around Liverpool, and leaving out of 

 consideration the Eed Marl, both of these formations seem to be 

 thicker there than anywhere else in Great Britain. The object of 

 this paper is to give a few notes recording the thickness of the Trias, 

 the structure of the various sandstones of which it is composed, and 

 the character of the included pebbles, many of which are of local 

 derivation. 



Excavations and borings have been in constant progress for many 

 years, so that every bed in the Trias has been exposed and on most 

 horizons many times in succession, and it is now possible to tell 

 exactly the strata to expect at any given depth when once those at 

 the surface are ascertained. 



The following section shows the succession and relative thickness 



1 Geology of New Hampshire, vol. iii. 1878, pp. 103-120. 



2 James Geikie, Q.J.G.S. vol. xxxiv. 1878, pi. xxxiii. "The Great Ice Age," 

 second edition, pp. 279-284, with plates ix. — xii. 



3 Nature, vol. xxiii. p. 393, with map of submarine contour. 



* Geol. Mag. Dec. III. Vol. VI. 1889, pp. 157, 158 ; Nature, vol. xxxii. p. 555. 



5 Nature, loc. cit. ; and vol. xxxix. pp. 488-492. 



6 Read at the British Association, Leeds, September, 1890. 



decade III. — VOL. VII. — NO. xi. 32 



