98 T. Mellard Reade — Post- Glacial Geology. 



arrived at. Though I might add further illustrations and facts to 

 those already given, as indeed I purpose doing in this paper, there is 

 very little in the original work that needs correction or alteration. 



In 1897, with Professor A. Eenard, of Ghent University, I had an 

 opportunity of seeing the excavations of the new Bruges Canal near 

 Heyst in Belgium, which resulted in my reading a paper before the 

 Geological Society of London, in which the Microzoa, especially the 

 Foraminifera in the silty beds overlying an extensive peat bed, are 

 dealt with in considerable detail,^ 



So much struck was I with the similarity of these Belgian Post- 

 Glacial deposits to those I had mapped out and sectioned in 

 Lancashire and Cheshire, that for microscopical comparison I took 

 the first opportunity that occurred to get specimens of the shelly 

 blue clays underlying the Peat - and - Forest Bed in Cheshire. 

 Mr. Joseph Wright, F.G.S., of Belfast, with his usual kindness, has 

 examined them for me, and, I am pleased to add, extracted a most 

 interesting assemblage of Foraminifera which form the subject of 

 this paper. It will be observed that the Belgian beds referred to 

 occur above the main bed of peat, whereas those in Cheshire and 

 Lancashire occur below the superior peat bed. The synchronism' of 

 the beds will be discussed later on. 



The Superior Peat-and-Forest Bed is exposed in a continuous 

 section along the shore from the west end of the old Wallasey 

 Embankment to a spot between Dove Point and Hoylake. Many 

 stools of trees rooted in the clay and silt below are still to be seen, 

 but the whole bed has been much reduced in area by the denudation 

 of the sea since my survey of 1871 was made. The peat has also 

 been stripped off, so that where formerly it was several feet thick 

 it is now reduced sometimes to one foot or less. Underlying this 

 Upper or Superior Peat-and-Forest Bed is a blue silty clay, which 

 is now nowhere exposed for a greater depth than from two to three 

 feet. It is this clay which I have classed with a similar bed in 

 Lancashire under the name of the Formby and Leasowe Marine 

 Beds, and from which the specimens yielding Foraminifera were 

 taken. At places there are still some exposures of a second bed of 

 peat underlying the Formby and Leasowe bed. This bed is known 

 as the Lower or Inferior Peat-and-Forest Bed, and it in turn rests 

 upon the Boulder-clay which is also exposed in the western end 

 of the series of beds described. I may add that this series is the 

 thinned-out shore margin of these Post-Glacial deposits. 



Description of Specimens. 



Specimen No. 1 was taken about a quarter of a mile east of Dove 

 Mark from the blue silt lying between the Superior Peat-and-Forest 

 Bed, which is here about I foot thick, and the Inferior Bed, here 

 only a few inches thick. The blue silt (Formby and Leasowe 

 Marine Beds) was only 2 feet thick, and contained much -vegetable 

 matter in the shape of traversing fibres. Below the Inferior Peat 



1 "Post-Glacial Beds exposed in the Cutting of the New Bruges Canal": 

 Q.J.G.S., vol. liv (1898), pp. 575-581. 



