548 T. M. Reade—Human Skull from Southport. 
estuarine deposit, containing Scrobicularia piperata, Cardium edule, 
Tellina solidula, Buccinum undatum, and is locally called ‘“ Scotch.” 
In the land-surface or peat bed were found a few bones of the Horse 
and Red Deer, and also in the “ Scotch” or silt underlying it. This 
was not penetrated to the Boulder-clay, but from my knowledge of 
the locality, I should say that the Boulder-clay did not lie nearer 
than from 30 to 40 feet of the surface at the spot. 
Similar soil surfaces and peat beds are, I have proved, continuous 
under the blown sand, with the submarine Forest-bed on the shore 
at Hightown,' but the remains found on them are not necessarily of 
the age when the ‘“ Primeval” Forest flourished. The silt beneath 
belongs to a very extensive series of deposits I have termed the _ 
“Formby and Leasowe Marine Beds,” and though I have directed 
my attention to the subject for fourteen years, and am in possession 
of pretty nearly all the information to be obtained from excavations 
and borings, some being made under my personal directions, and 
particulars of others given me by brother engineers and by con- 
tractors, 1 have never succeeded in finding any organic remains 
older than Bos longifrons, the Red Deer, and the Horse, and there 
are not any authenticated instances by others of older finds than. 
these. I believe I have collected more bones from these beds than 
any other geologist. Most of these are in the Liverpool Museum, 
and can be seen on application to the Curator, Mr. T. J. Moore, who 
has also named them. 
As such mis-statements are apt to live long and mislead many, 
J have thought it due in the interests of sober science to correct Dr. 
Barron’s ardent imaginings. The age of the whole series of beds 
is later than that of the “Cave Man,” if that individual was a con- 
temporary of the Jrish Elk and the Reindeer, therefore the human 
remains lying nearly at the top of the series cannot have been of the 
age of the “Cave Man.” The only mode at present open to us of 
estimating the age of the remains found on the old land surface is 
by internal evidence, and by the accumulation of blown sand above 
them. I have elsewhere calculated from the rate of accumulation of 
blown sand on the sand dunes now, that the whole 22 square miles 
of sand on this coast cannot have taken less than 2500 years in 
accumulating. If we put the maximum age of the skull down as 
2000 years, I consider it would be a liberal estimate, but the minimum 
age it would be impossible to fix from present data. I may add 
that there are no remains of the Ash in the ‘“‘ Forest Bed,” but the 
Oak, Pine, Birch, Alder, and Willow abound. 
1 «On a Section of the Formby and Leasowe Marine Beds at Hightown,’’ Proc. 
of Liverpool Geol. Soc., Sess. 1881-2. 
2 «On the date of the last change of level in Lancashire,’’ Quart. Journ. of the 
Geol. Soc., August, 1881, pp. 486-437. 
