288 Obituary — Lady Lyell. 



with which it is intercalated, and which it apparently sometimes 

 entirely replaces, the two deposits being lithologicalhj one, any 

 division between them would be a zoological boundary. 



I am not surprised to hear of Mr. Eeade's discovery of marine 

 shells in a hole in the lower part of the grey clay, beneath the peat 

 of Alt mouth, as I showed in my paper read at the Geol. 8oc. of 

 London, June, 1870, that beneath the peat and grey clay there is 

 almost always a bed of Post-tertiary marine (Shirdley Hill) sand 

 resting on denuded Boulder-Clay. But the upper part of the grey clay 

 there I know to be of freshwater origin, containing rushes and other 

 plants, as well as freshwater shells, which, however, are by no means 

 common. 



Freshwater shells also occur in the grey clay, beneath the peat, at 

 the brick-pit, near the Isle of Wight, Birkdale, which I constantly 

 visited during my nine months' stay at Birkdale, never finding any 

 marine forms in it, though they occur abundantly in the silty-clay 

 above the peat, and fragments of sea-shells were found in the 

 Shirdley Hill Sand, underlying the grey clay of this pit. 



The sand was absent in the Journal of the boring made at the 

 Palace Hotel, Birkdale Park, communicated to me in 1868, by Mr. 

 Holbrook Gaskell, J.P., the chairman of the Company, the peat and 

 grey clay together having thinned to 18 inches, and being overlaid by 

 79 feet of modern sand, partly blown. 



I would remind Mr. Eeade that the peat overlaps the grey clays, 

 and rests on marine sand and Boulder-clay, and that these clays 

 have therefore nothing like an area of 75 square miles, as he states. 

 And that, again, this plain is only a portion of a larger one, since 

 destroyed, in which the waters of the Mersey and Eibble met, not 

 the brooks now draining into the 75 square miles. 



H.M. Geological Survey, Chakles E. De Eance. 



Ambleside. 



On the 24th of April died Mary Elizabeth, the wife of Sir 

 Charles Lyell, Bart., in the 65th year of her age. Lady Lyell was 

 the eldest daughter of Leonard Horner, Esq., F.E.S., a prominent 

 member of the Geological Society from its foundation down to his 

 death in 1864. In 1832 she was married to Sir Charles, then Mr. 

 Lyell, and ever since constantly accompanied him in his several 

 geological visits to North America, as well as on almost all his jour- 

 neys on the Continent of Europe as well as in England. Lady 

 Lyell entered warmly into the scientific pursuits of her husband, and 

 keenly appreciated the continual changes and advances in geological 

 knowledge. By her energetic assistance in writing from dictation, 

 the labour of bringing out the several editions of the works on 

 Geology, by Sir Charles Lyell, was materially lessened ; and scarcely 

 a proof-sheet was finally sent off to the printer without being first 

 submitted to her for criticism and approval. In this way one of the 

 last acts of her life was to read over tlie concluding chapter of the 

 fourth edition of the "Antiquity of Man," just published. 



