Notices of Memoirs — G. H. Morton. 525 



Professor C. Malaise — Sur le terrain Silurien du centre de la Belgique. 

 W. ' Carruthers — Eemarks on the Fossils from the Kailway Section at 



Huyton. 

 T. A. Beadwin — Notes on a Merionethshire gold quartz crystal, and 



some gold found recently in the river Mawddaoh. 



I. — The Glaciated Condition of the Triassig Eogks abound 



Liverpool.^ 



By G. H. Morton, F.G.S., etc. 



"nEFBEEINGr first to the general geology of the neighbourhood of 

 JlL Livei-pool, Mr. Morton said that considerable attention had 

 been directed to it since the former meeting of the British Associa- 

 tion in the town, in 1854. 



At that meeting, Mr. Edward Hull, F.G.S,, exhibited the first 

 authentic section of the Triassic strata across the district which he 

 had then just surveyed. The map of the Government Geological 

 Survey, published immediately afterwards, was of great value to 

 local geologists ; and although sixteen years of continued observa- 

 tions render a few corrections necessary, they were of a trivial 

 character, and not of sufficient importance to bring before the Section. 

 A deep railway cutting has very recently opened a portion of the 

 Middle (or productive) Coal strata between Eainhill and St, Helen's, 

 and an extraordinary variety of Carboniferous plants and fish remains 

 have been found. The most important progress, however, in local 

 geology, has resulted from the examination of the superficial or Drift 

 deposits which cover the country, and the discovery of the glaciated 

 condition of the surface of the Sandstone beneath. 



It was to the latter subject that Mr. Morton now drew special 

 attention. After pointing out the sub-divisions of the Glacial and 

 Po^-glacial Deposits, he remarked that it was only when the Boulder- 

 clay has overlain the striated rock, that the scratches were preserved. 

 This Boulder deposit is the dark-red clay so extensively used in the 

 neighbourhood for brick-making. It seldom contains fragments of 

 local origin, but always hard rocks, such as quartzite, granite, green- 

 stone, basalt, and slate. 



In 1859, Mr. Morton described, for the first time, to the Literary 

 and Philosophical Society of Liverpool, evidences of the action of 

 ice on the Sandstone in this neighbourhood. Having at that time 

 only found such indications in a single locality, he attributed the 

 striated surface to the grounding of an iceberg in the Glacial sea. 

 In 1866, having found several additional examples of tliis glaciation 

 on both sides of the river, but at no great distance from it, he began 

 to entertain the opinion that a glacier had descended the valley of 

 the Mersey during the early part of the Glacial Period, and made a 

 communication to that effect to the Liverpool Geological Society. 

 Lately, however, he had discovered similar evidences of ice-action at 



1 Eead before the British Association (Section C.) at Liverpool, September, 1870. 



VOL. VII. — NO. LXXYII. 34 



