Darbishire—Macclesfield Drift-beds. 295 
Scandinavia and Canada, and in many a beach and channel of the 
present seas. 
The origin of these beds, which are sands and shingle rather 
than gravels, is unquestionably marine. Such beds are ranked 
by some observers as anterior to the Boulder-clay, by others as 
intermediate between a lower and an upper Boulder-clay, by others 
as a local or temporary modification of that deposit, or as the 
remains of a subsequent age. 
It will be sufficient to mention particularly two noted instances of 
these deposits, each of which has been well examined and described. 
A bed containing remains of marine shells was discovered by the 
late Mr. Trimmer at the height of about 1,350 feet above the level of 
the sea, on Moel Tryfaen, near Carnarvon, one of the western spurs 
of the Snowdon range. To this deposit, which has lately been 
largely laid open as a mass of stratified drift some 40 feet thick, in 
the cuttings of the Alexandra Slate Quarry, I had the pleasure of 
directing the attention of Sir C. Lyell and the Rev. W. S. Symonds 
in the summer of 1863, © 
Protected from the dissolving rainfall of ages by a superficial bed 
of clay, this ancient shingle has yielded an abundant series of shells 
and fragments, to the number of nearly 60 species. ‘There is no 
doubt of their genuine character. The greater part of them I have 
myself taken from successive faces as exposed in the progress of the 
quarries. Full notes on the subject will be found in the proceedings 
of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society for November 
1868, and in the Appendix to the third edition of the ‘ Antiquity of 
Man.’ The beds consist of fine and coarse sand, and a variety of 
shingle with pebbles varying in size from sand to paving-stones. 
The second deposit of the kind I shall mention is exposed in the 
shore-cliffs north of the Gynn, between Blackpool and Fleetwood 
on the Lancashire coast, where it may be well seen for a mile or 
more in length, and many yards in thickness. Here also the forma- 
tions consists of fine and coarse marine sand, and fine and coarse 
shingle. It exhibits in great variety the false-bedding and local 
assortment of materials above referred to. These beds have yielded 
a few shells and fragments of shells, the greater number of which 
are enumerated in Mr. Binney’s paper On the Drift Deposits near 
Blackpool, in the 10th volume of the Memoirs of the Manchester 
Literary and Philosophical Society (1851-2). ‘The remainder of the 
specimens named in the subjoined table from this locality have been 
found there by myself. 
I will only add, before proceeding to the examination of the Mac- 
clesfield fossils, that the strata to which those specimens are attri- 
buted precisely correspond in character with the Moel Tryfaen and 
the Blackpool Beds, excepting only that at the Macclesfield Cemetery 
the beds present a section of 60 to 70 feet in depth, or nearly twice 
as great as that of either of the more western sites. 
Similar beds are found in several places in the district about 
Macclesfield. One locality of peculiar interest was discovered by 
Mr. Prestwich, F.R.S., in an escarpment about half a mile east .of 
