PERMIAN STRATA OF EAST CHESHIRE. 233 



to do SO in the neighbourliood of Manchester and Stock- 

 port without adducing sufficient reasons for so doing. No 

 evidence has yet been given of the disappearance of the 

 Lower Mottled Sandstone and the Permian marls ; and 

 until such is given^ Mr. Hull ought to be held fast to his 

 own classification, and allow the soft red sandstone which 

 dips under the pebble-beds at Stockport to be the lowest 

 member of his triple division of the Bunter, which is the 

 lowest division of his triple division of the Trias. This 

 plan of dividing into three parts,, as at present used, is 

 probably more fashionable than useful. 



The pebble-beds under the town of Stockport have had 

 bores made in them to the depth of nearly 600 feet with- 

 out going through them; so an estimated thickness of 

 800 feet is not too great to put them down at. Between 

 these beds and the underlying soft sandstone seen in the 

 valley to Fogbrook, no one has found any other boundary- 

 line than that the pebbles cease to occur in the soft sand- 

 stone. What is required to prove the Fogbrook sandstone 

 Permian, if red marls with magnesian-limestone fossils 

 cannot be found lying above them, is to show the pebble- 

 beds resting on eroded surfaces of Permian sandstone ; and 

 until such is done, the Fogbrook sandstone ought to be 

 regarded as Lower Mottled Sandstone in its proper posi- 

 tion dipping under the pebble-beds. When that evidence 

 is produced (to show that the pebble-beds repose on eroded 

 surfaces of the sandstone) , I shall be the first to admit that 

 I have been in error in describing the Fogbrook sandstone 

 as the lowest member of the Trias and not Permian. 



In the Norbury-Brook section, as previously stated, no 

 trace of the Permian sandstone was seen, and the over- 

 lying breccia or conglomerate was only 5 feet 3 inches in 

 thickness. At Ockley Brook, about a mile further north, 

 the breccia was 30 feet in thickness, and the Permian sand- 

 stone 15 feet, thus showing an increase in that direction ; 



