POUND NEAR MACCLESFIELD. 57 



and other shells utterly strange to the English Drift. This 

 accident is referred to because in some cases it would seem 

 certain that shells from some recent British beach have 

 been used to similarly profitable advantage. Spurious re- 

 mains of the latter class, obviously introduced to meet the 

 novel demand, while they are often more difficult to detect, 

 throw suspicion upon some specimens which may after all 

 be genuine. 



There are, nevertheless, many undoubted fossils; and 

 the list is larger than has yet been published of such re- 

 mains in this neighbourhood. It is offered as a small 

 contribution towards the multitude of observations on 

 which at some future time a solution of the perplexities 

 of the so-called " Drift " of the district may, it is to be 

 hoped, be founded. 



The beds in question are situated on the easterly side of 

 the road from Macclesfield, past the Free Park, and on the 

 north side of a small ravine which runs from the road, 

 skirting the Cemetery Hill on its south-easterly declivity, 

 to open into the valley of the BoUjn. They were exposed 

 chiefly on a south-easterly face along the ravine, but have 

 been much defaced by terraces and ballast-tips, so that very 

 little actual section can now be examined. 



Situated at an elevation of between 500 and 600 feet 

 above the sea-level, these beds show a vertical thickness of 

 about 70 feet under the loam. They consist of fine (run- 

 ning) sand, fine and coarse shingle, and very coarse gravel 

 of rounded pebbles, up to the size of a man's head or 

 larger. I did not observe scratches on any of these pebbles. 

 These materials are stratified, in general, horizontally, but 

 exhibit considerable irregularity in the extension and levels 

 of particular portions of successive strata. On both sec- 

 tions (north and south, and east and west) almost every 

 layer shows various examples of false bedding, the whole 

 presenting a characteristically marine aspect, and telling 



