296 Darbishire—Macclesfield Drift-beds. 
the Setter Dog Inn, on the Buxton Road, at an elevation of between 
1,100 and 1,200 feet above the level of the sea. 
During the summer and autumn of last year, while the New Ce- . 
metery west of the Free Park at Macclesfield was being constructed, 
it became necessary to make a series of cuttings in the top and 
easterly declivities of the hill selected for its site, the ballast being 
tipped on to the lower edges of the hill, and along a new embanked 
road towards the town. In the course of these works an unusually 
complete exposure of the beds was effected, and a very large mass 
of material turned over. 
From these cuttings, Mr. J. D. Sainter, a medical man of standing 
in Macclesfield, and a practised collector of geological specimens, 
and Mr. James Lowe, sen., also experienced in collecting, though not 
as a geologist, gathered together a large quantity of shells and frag- 
ments of shells. They frequently purchased from the workmen 
specimens which the latter stated they had dug up. The remains 
so collected were submitted for examination to gentlemen of the 
Geological Survey then engaged in the district; and after they had 
signified their interest in the series, and had pointed out the pre- 
sence of certain spurious specimens, it happened that the opportu- 
nity was afforded to me of making a very thorough examination of . 
nearly the whole of the specimens thus got together. 
Partly by a considerable purchase from Mr. Lowe, and partly by 
my own collections during repeated visits, I have acquired the series 
I now exhibit. The fragments which I collected were picked by 
myself from fresh faces of undisturbed beds, or from the slopes of 
natural or artificial falls. 
Of the species marked in the following Table, as found in Mr. 
Prestwich’s patch, all were found by myself except those noted with 
an asterisk, which Mr. Lowe gathered from that place. 
The bulk of this collection was exhibited by me at a meeting of 
the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society in November last, 
and formed the subject of a short paper on the deposit and its fos- 
sils. In that paper due notice was taken of the introduction of 
recent Foreign and British shells. . 
There is no doubt that, as Messrs. Sainter and Lowe were very 
much interested in the discovery, and paid the workmen for speci- 
mens, many more were handed in to them than had been honestly 
dug up. Showy tropical species of Murex, Cyprea, Rotella, and 
many other shells of less remote but obviously of recent origin, 
were thus at first passed off upon these gentlemen, neither of whom 
is practised in fossil or recent conchology. Some of these spurious 
remains are evidently shells from some recent British sea-beach. 
The intrusion of these latter, particularly of shells which look as if 
they had long been chimneypiece ornaments or children’s playthings, 
is the more to be regretted, as their presence tends to throw doubt 
upon several specimens which may after all be genuine. 
But, in truth, it is only as to a very few of this class of specimens 
that anyone really skilled in recent and fossil conchology can for a 
moment hesitate. Shells or fragments with bright fresh gloss, or ' 
