PERMIAN STRATA OF OPENSHAW. 129 



there is a representative of it in the Knowsley Quarry, 

 near Prescot. 



2. Magnesian marls with limestones and gypsum, con- 

 taining Schizodus obscurus, Gervillia antiqua, and other 

 characteristic fossils. 



3. Conglomerate. 



4. Permian sandstone of Vauxhall, Manchester. 



5. Lower Permian sandstone of Whitehaven and Astley, 

 by many English geologists taken to be unconformable 

 Coal Measures, but in Germany termed Lower Roth- 

 liegende. 



The old Magnesian Limestone formation, as described 

 by Professors Sedgwick and King, and my friend Mr. J. 

 W, Kirby, in the East and N.E. of England under the 

 four first-named divisions, was pretty plain, although the 

 line of demarcation between the Brotherton limestone and 

 the Trias was not so easy to make out in all places. In 

 the N.W. of England, and adjoining Scotland, the St.- 

 Bees sandstone, a rock of about looo feet thickness, 

 cannot be traced passing distinctly upwards into the Trias, 

 although doubtless it does somewhere betwixt Carlisle and 

 the Solway ; but in the valley of the Irk at Manchester 

 the beds Nos. 4, 3, and 2 are seen lying on each other, 

 apparently passing into the overlying Trias, all the three 

 rocks dipping at the same angle and in the same direction. 

 Near i\Ianchester the occurrence of Permian fossils has 

 enabled us to fix the position of the red sandstones and 

 marls of the Trias and Permian beds ; but after leaving 

 Barrow Mouth, near Whitehaven, and traversing the 

 country by IMaryport, Carlisle, and Longtown to Cano- 

 bie, as yet no fossil organic remains have been met 

 with to help us, and we have to trust chiefiy to super- 

 position to separate the two formations. All who have 

 investigated these formations know the diflficulty of 



SEK. III. VOL. vir. 



