﻿1851.] TRIMMER ON ERRATICS OF CHESHIRE. 



201 



infers that the Till is the wastings of coasts and the sedimentary 

 matter of rivers deposited in the valleys of a deep sea, inhabited by 

 the Anarrhicas lupus*. 



2. On the Erratic Tertiaries bordering the Penine Chain, be- 

 tween Congleton and Macclesfield ; and on the Scratched 

 Detritus of the Till. By Joshua Trimmer, Esq., F.G.S. 



The dispersion of granitic and other northern detritus over the plain 

 of the New Red Sandstone in Lancashire, Cheshire, Staffordshire, 

 Shropshire, and Worcestershire, and the presence of marine shells in 

 the erratic deposits of that district are now so well known, that notice 

 of their occurrence in any new localities within it can have little inter- 

 est, except as illustrating general views respecting the history of these 

 deposits, their influence on the distribution of soils, and the origin 

 of their peculiar characters. I refer to the Proceedings of the Geo- 

 logical Society, vol. i. p. 41 9, to the Journal of the Geological Society 

 of Dublin, vol. iii. part 4, and to the Report of the Newcastle Meet- 

 ing of the British Association, 1838, for descriptions of the Upper 

 and Lower Erratics (then called Diluvium and Northern Drift) be- 

 tween the Mersey and the Dee, and along the western flanks of the 

 Welsh mountains, from the Dee to Harlech ; and also for evidence 

 of the accumulation of the erratic deposits on a previous terrestrial 

 surface on the western, similar to those exhibited on the eastern side 

 of the island by the Cromer sections. 



The proofs consist in the superposition of the marine deposits in 

 Cefn Cave on the banks of the Elwy in Denbighshire to those con- 

 taining mammalian remains, and to mammalian remains and timber 

 in the detrital lead-works of Talargoch, at the mouth of the Clwyd, 

 of which the Elwy is a tributary At the latter locality, they are ac- 

 companied by whole marine shells, with numerous pebbles of lime- 

 stone abounding with molluscous perforations, the absence of which, 

 from the erratic deposits, even when full of limestone fragments, con- 

 stitutes one of their characteristics. 



Notice of the mammalian remains at Talargoch will also be found 

 in the 'Reliquiae Diluvianse' (p. 178); and the deposits of Cefn 

 Cave, with the exception of the marine bed, were also described by 

 the late Bishop of Norwich in the Proceedings of the Geological 

 Society, vol. i. p. 402. 



I shall now show, that the erratic deposits of the western coast ex- 

 tend into the interior, where they are of great thickness, and that the 

 divisions! of "Lower Erratics," "Boulder Clay," and "Upper Er- 

 ratics" (sand and gravel) are persistent to the very edge of the Penine 

 Chain, modified by the exceptional circumstance of a bed of sand with 



* See Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. vi. p. 386. The Cat-fish, here referred to, 

 reduces the shells of Molluscs on which it feeds to coarse fragments, and, after 

 digesting the soft parts, emits the fragments [by regurgitation]. 



f Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society, vol. vi. part 2. pp. 461 et seq. ; and 

 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. (No. 25) vol. vii. p. 21. par. 4. 



VOL. VII. PART I. P 



