A. Sti^ahan — Lower Keuper Sandstone. 399 



of the sections in Lancashire for the purpose of making comparisons. 

 The Basement Beds as exposed at Ormskirk, and in the Orrel 

 railway cutting, are similar to those of Cheshire, and like them are 

 succeeded abruptly upwards by beds of the Eed Marl type. The 

 junction is exposed in the Orrel railway cutting, and presents a 

 very similar appearance to the sections at Euncorn and Frodsham, 

 described above. Borings, made subsequently to the survey by Mr. 

 De Eance, have proved that the lower part of the Marls contain 

 sandy beds, corresponding in character and position to the Water- 

 stones of Cheshire. In Liverpool the same sequence has been 

 observed by Messrs. De Eance and Morton. The cemetery shales, 

 which were supposed by Mr. Morton to be intercalated in the 

 Keuper Basement Beds, are now known to be the lower beds of the 

 Eed Marl repeated by a fault, so that the supposed discrepancy 

 between the sequence here and in Cheshire is removed. 



At the same time Mr. Aveline recognized this boundary-line in 

 Cheshire as the same as that which had been mapped by hiin as 

 the base of the Waterstones in the neighbourhood of Nottingham. 

 He states in the Geology of the Country around Nottingham (2nd 

 edition, p. 29) that, " Only the Middle and Upper division of the 

 Keuper are fully developed, namely, the Waterstones and the Upper 

 Keuper Marls. But at the base of the Waterstones there often 

 occurs a thin bed or beds of conglomerate resting on the eroded 

 surface or in hollows of the Pebble Beds ; below this conglomerate, 

 and lying in hollows in the Bunter, has been found a coarse 

 white sand, much resembling the white Keuper building-stone of 

 Cheshire if pounded."^ It is stated that the break between the 

 Bunter and Keuper is complete, but Mr. Shipman observes that 

 the Waterstones are seen overlapping the white sandstone on either 

 side and resting on the Bunter, and remarks that " The White 

 Sandstone at Nottingham had evidently suffered some amount of 

 denudation before the Brown Sandstone and the Eed Clay of the 

 ' Waterstones ' were deposited over it." Two outliers of Waterstones 

 also, according to Mr. Aveline, rest on the Pebble Beds in Beeston 

 Field. Therefore, whether the Keuper Basement Beds of Cheshire 

 are represented or not, it is certain that there is as strong a line at 

 the base of the Waterstones here as in Cheshire, with the additions 

 of a well-marked overlap, and an apparent local unconformity. 



At Alton, in Staffordshire, according to Mr. Shipman, "there is a 

 still more decided break (than at Helsby Hill, in Cheshire), indicated 

 by a sudden change in the character of the sediment laid down. 

 The upper surface of the Basement Beds there shows no sign of 

 having been eroded, but the ' Waterstones ' are represented by sandy 

 Marls, with sometimes a solitary seam of brown sandstone near the 

 bottom — a marked contrast to the compact coarse pink or white 

 sandstone that forms the base there." ^ This locality is important 



1 See also J. Shipman, " Conglomerate at tlie Base of the Lower Keuper," Geol. 

 Mag. 1877, p. 497, and E. Wilson and J. Shipman, " On the Occui-rence of the 

 Keuper Basement Beds in the Neighbourhood of Nottingham," Geol. Mag. 1879, 

 p. 532. ^ Nottingham Naturalists' Society, Annual Eeport for 1880. 



