G. R. Morion— The Bunter and Keuper near LicerpooL 503 



district, and concluded that they were exactly alike, while they 

 differ from any English rock. He supposes that the Bunter beds 

 of Central and Northern England may represent " the deltas of two 

 great streams descending respectively from the north-west and the 

 north-east, and receiving tributaries from land on either side." l 

 Both Prof. Hull and Prof. Bonney agreed as to the origin of the 

 pebbles, and that some may have been embedded in the Old Red 

 Conglomerate, and ultimately in the Triassie sandstone. Indeed, 

 Prof. Hull surmised that they " must have undergone a process of 

 trituration during more than one geological period, else they would 

 not be so invariably bereft of all angularity." 



Mr. W. J. Harrison, F.G.S., ascribes the source of the quartzite 

 pebbles in the Midland Counties to the old Palaeozoic ridge in Central 

 England, the short distance of which may account for the great 

 number and variety of the pebbles found there. 2 Prof. Bonney, 

 however, states that he has identified two different quartzites there, 

 and that the Ross-shire quartzite is one of them. In 1883 Prof. 

 Hull announced that he had abandoned the view of the North 

 British origin of the pebbles in favour of that proposed by Mr. 

 Harrison, and states that: — "At the time I suggested the Scottish 

 source, I was freshly and vividly impressed with the resemblance 

 of the reddish or 'liver-coloured' quartzite pebbles to those of the 

 Old Red Conglomerate of the Lesmahago and other districts. But 

 I all along felt the difficulty (on which Mr. Harrison lays just stress) 

 that the number and age of the Bunter pebbles decrease from the 

 Central District of England towards the North-west, which ought 

 not to be the case if they had the origin I attributed to them. 

 Further reflection leads me to think that the objection is fatal to 

 the view either of myself or of Prof. Bonney, notwithstanding the 

 microscopic resemblance which he points out to the quartzites of 

 the Highland rocks." 3 



Mr. A. Strahan, F.G.S., is of opinion that the Bunter Sandstone 

 " was distributed b}' strong currents flowing between Central Eng- 

 land and Wales from the South, as the increasing abundance of 

 pebbles in this direction indicates." If such were the case, the 

 Bunter would appear to have been a delta deposit, the production of 

 a river draining the lost Triassie lands. 4 



Conditions of Deposition. 

 The Permian, Bunter and Keuper formations in the country 

 around Liverpool seem to have been deposited under somewhat 

 similar conditions, and consist of beds of sandstone associated with 

 frequent conglomerates, breccias, shales and marls. Many opinions 

 have been expressed as to the relative conditions under which the 

 formations were deposited, but that there was a gradual change from 

 an open sea in the Permian to a contracted estuary or lake in the 



i Geol. Mag. Dec. II. Vol. VII. p. 404 (1880), and Vol. X. p. 199 (1883). 



2 Proc. Birmingham Phil. Soc. vol. iii. p. 157 (1882). 



3 " Pebbles in the Bunter Sandstone," Geol. Mag. Dec. II. Vol. X. p. 285 (1883). 



4 " Geology of Cheshire," Journ. Iron and Steel Inst. p. 352 (1884). 



