308 English Formations. 



In the same continental area, and partly on the 

 Permian rocks, partly on older subjacent strata, the 

 New Ked Sandstone and Marl of our region were then 

 deposited in lakes perhaps occasionally fresh, but as 

 regards the marl certainly salt. These formations fill 

 the Vale of Clwyd in North Wales, and in the centre of 

 England range from the mouth of the Mersey round 

 the borders of Wales to the estuary of the Severn, east- 

 wards into Warwickshire, and thence northwards into 

 Yorkshire, along the eastern border of the Magnesian 

 limestone (see Map). They are absent in Scotland. 

 In the centre of England the unequal hardness of its 

 subdivisions sometimes gives rise to minor escarpments 

 (Nos. 4 and 6, fig. 32, p. 154), most of them looking 

 west over plains and undulating ground formed of soft 

 red sandstone. Such escarpments are especially re- 

 markable in the case of the Keuper sandstone, which 

 lies at the base of the New Eed Marl. These strata 

 frequently form a good building stone, often white, 

 and because of their hardness having better resisted 

 denudation than the red sandstones below, they stand 

 out as bold cliffy scarps facing west, with long gentle 

 slopes to the east. Such are Hilsby Hill, that looks 

 out upon the Mersey, near Frodsham ; the beautiful 

 terraced scarps of Delamere Forest, the grand castle- 

 crowned cliff of Beeston by the Nortli Western Railway, 

 near Tarporley, and the beautiful heights, often well 

 wooded, that stretch from thence to the south, and form 

 the Peckforton Hills. There, among spots that haunt 

 the memory, in the ancient park of Garden, scarped 

 by nature and cut into terraced walks and caverns, 

 among the red and white cliffs grow great rhododen- 

 drons, which sow themselves in every mossy cleft of the 

 rocks ; luxuriant brackens, male ferns, lady ferns, 



