398 A. Strahan — Lower Keuper Sandstone. 



Towards tlie top of tlie Waterstones, tlie sandstones become 

 gradually less numerous, and the shales predominate, so that there 

 is a passage upwards into the Eed Marls, in which bands of sand- 

 stone are less common, though not absent, the Upper Keuper sand- 

 stone of the Midland districts being apparently a repetition in the 

 Marl of beds of the Waterstone type. The line separating the 

 Waterstones from the Eed Marls is under these circumstances 

 arbitrary, and can only be regarded as approximately separating the 

 more sandy base of the Marls from the main mass above in which 

 shales predominate. This arbitrary horizon was formerly taken as 

 the upper boundary of the Lower Keuper Sandstone, the Water- 

 stones and the Lower Keuper Sandstone (as now defined) having 

 been hitherto grouped together. 



The Waterstones also, like the Eed Marls, contain abundantly 

 ripple-marks, sun-cracks, markings supposed to be rain-pittings, and 

 the casts in clay of the cubical crystals of rock-salt. These casts 

 or pseudomorphs appear for the first time in the Waterstones, being 

 unknown, so far as I have heard, in the Keuper Basement Beds. 



The Waterstones, in common with the Keuper Basement Beds 

 and the Bunter, are subject to rapid variations in colour. They are 

 usually deep-red, with thin green bands, but on Longley Hill, near 

 Kelsall, they are locally bleached, the sandstones being white, and 

 the shales green with thin red bands. Similarly the Basement Beds 

 at Helsby Hill are brown, but become mottled with white towards 

 the south end of the hill. Two miles to the south, at Manley, they 

 are a pure white, and the lumps of shale included in them are green, 

 sometimes with a red nucleus. At Delamere they are brown again, 

 but in the Peckforton Hills once more white. The Frodshara Beds 

 also vary from a bright-red and yellow at Delamere to a yellow at 

 Manley, while at High Billinge they are bright-red again. At 

 Frodsham they are red, but in the road to Overton snow-white, but 

 at Overton, about one mile from Frodsham, once more bright-red. 

 The change from red to white within a few yards at Euncorn Station 

 has been already referred to. The Upper Mottled Sandstone shows 

 equally rapid changes of colour in a small space at Beeston Castle. 

 On the east side of the hill it is deep red, on the north yellow with 

 veins of iron oxide, on the north-west yellow mottled with red, on 

 the west yellow above and red below, but on the south red above 

 and yellow below. These changes take place within an area of 

 abbut one quarter of a square mile. The observations on the changes 

 of colour iu these rocks are instructive as showing how little reliance 

 can be placed on this character as a means of identifying horizons in 

 the absence of continuous sections. 



During the progress of the re-survey of the Keuper in Cheshire, 

 I was informed by Mr. De Eance that the line between the Water- 

 stones and Basement Beds which I was engaged in tracing, existed 

 also in Lancashire, and had been selected by him as the base line 

 of the Marls, no subdivision of the Waterstones being possible, 

 from the prevalence of drift over the area probably occupied by 

 them. I had afterwards an opportunity of visiting with him some 



