Reports and Proceedings. 375 
renowned for its siege during the Civil War. Mr. C. Brocklehurst 
and Mr. Sainter, from Macclesfield, joined the excursionists by 
invitation; and at the close of the very agreeable day’s proceedings, 
the latter gentleman read the following interesting paper On 
the Geology of Cloud Hill and the adjacent country :—‘ Cloud Hill is 
about 1,200 feet above the level of the sea; it is capped by the 
Millstone-grit, and is composed of three beds, namely, first, third, 
and fourth grits, with shales between each, and the thickness 
amounts to about 500 feet. The second bed is not represented. 
The first, or uppermost bed, technically called “Rough Rock,” 
is @ coarse massive sandstone or grit, and it forms almost in- 
variably the floor of the Coal-measures. It averages in aremarkable 
manner throughout its whole course about 100 feet in thickness. 
On the borders of Lancashire and Yorkshire, near Mottram, the 
Millstone-grit series consists of five beds, which exhibit a total 
thickness, with their shales, of about 3,000 feet. On tracing these 
grits southwards, the beds become gradually thinner; and at about ten 
miles south-west of this locality, three of the beds have died out ; leav- 
ing the first and third, with their shales, at a thickness only of about 
300 feet ; as may be observed on the margins of the Wetley and 
Cheadle Coal-fields. The second bed of grit, which consists mostly 
of a brown, flaggy, fine-grained sandstone, can be traced no farther 
than a little to the south of Shutlingslow. This hill (Cloud) forms 
a very striking feature in the surrounding landscape, and presents a 
development of the first and third grits, particularly the latter, which 
is generally celebrated for its massiveness of structure and its long 
lines of steeply scarped hills, that contrast so strongly with the 
undulating plains of Cheshire. But while I am dwelling upon the 
physical features of this part of the country in relation to scenic 
effect, I must say a few words of a more useful and practical cha- 
racter ; and that refers to the position of this hill with reference to 
the Coal-measures below it on its western aspect, as these form the 
most northerly point of the North Staffordshire Coal-fields. The 
whole of these beds of coal, with their sandstones and shales, are 
contained in a basin or trough, called the Biddulph Trough; and this 
hollow is formed by the two beds of grit before named, which pass 
under these Coal-measures, and crop cut again on the opposite side of 
the valley, forming the bold ridge of Congleton Edge, and the 
fantastic denudations of Mow Cop. The fourth bed of grit is 
quarried below the eastern side of Cloud Hill, but it extends not 
much farther westward, since-it does not make its appearance on its 
proper horizon at Mow Cop or Congleton Edge. Eastward, this bed 
(the fourth) forms the romantic scenery around the banks of Rudyard 
Lake, and it gradually dies out near Cheddleton, after having ex- 
hibited on the confines of Lancashire, Yorkshire, and Derbyshire, an 
enormous mass of gritstone and conglomerate, about 1,000 feet in 
thickness. The fifth bed terminates in the Rudyard Basin near the 
Weiley Coal-field ; and although it has been as regular and persistent 
in its course as the fourth bed, still it has held in general a subordi- 
nate relation to it with respect to industrial purposes; since .the 
