T. Mcllard Reade — An Ancient. Glacial Shore. 77 



great quantity of clay balls or boulders mixed with the sand. 

 These balls are covered over their surface with small gravel, shells 

 and sand, picked up as they rolled about on the beach, just like 

 the mud balls we find on the shore at Crosby at the present day. 

 On being cut into with a knife these clay balls are seen to be formed 

 of ordinary compact brown Boulder-clay, and they are pretty hard. 

 The contractor, Mr. Davies, who is much interested in the geology 

 of the cutting, tells me that these clay balls are found all over the 

 area in great profusion, and as far as I tested the bed, which I 

 did in at least half-a-dozen places, I found the statement correct. 

 He also informed me that the bed is underlain by silt, but it has 

 not been tested more than a few feet deep. 1 picked up and 

 brought away about twenty clay balls varying in size from 3 inches 

 down to 1^ inch diameter, some of them being spherical and others 

 ellipsoidal in form. 



These balls or boulders can, I believe, only be found on the 

 shores of tidal seas, where they get partially dried during the 

 recession of the water twice in 24 hours, and more dried at neaps. 

 If they were constantly immersed they would get dissolved. 



In the Geological Magazine for 1878, p. 571, I described the 

 formation of clay boulders from the Estuarine clay on the Crosby 

 shore, and shortly afterwards was informed by the late Mr. Binney, 

 F.R.S., that he had found similar boulders in the Boulder-clay in a 

 railway cutting near Crumpsall ' 207 feet above the sea-level. But 

 such boulders are not only made from stiff clay ; the recent mud 

 deposits yield them also, and, as I said before, they are quite a 

 common phenomenon on our shore. I have seen a few in drift 

 on other occasions, but in nothing like the regularity and profusion 

 shown in the instance I am describing. 



Glacialists who are satisfied with no explanation of drift phe- 

 nomena which does not ascribe everything to land-ice continually 

 ask those of more moderate views who still believe the sea had 

 a considerable share in the work to show them shore-lines. With 

 this object I forward these lines, and there is no doubt the 

 ancient beach is much more extensive than the portion touched by 

 the excavation. 



I may add that glacial strije bearing N. 25° W. are to be seen 

 on the Keuper Sandstone when bared of Boulder-clay, in the same 

 cutting, but at a higher level and more to the north-west. 



PosTSCKTPT, December Gth. — Since the above was written the 

 excavations from Poulton Eoad to Mill Lane have disclosed a 

 continuation of the beach a fresh distance of 10 chains. At this 

 western extremity the clay boulders occur, but not in such pro- 

 fusion, and the sand increases in thickness. Allowing for the curve 

 in the line, the plane of the beach is continued at the same slope. 

 The laminations of the bed south-east of Poulton Eoad are now 

 very apparent, and thin beds of small clay balls are intercalated 

 in the laminge. — T. M. E. 



1 See " On Boulders of Clay from the Drift " by E. W. Binney, Proc. Lit. and 

 Phil. Soc. of Manchester, 1879', p. 40. 



