FOUND NEAR MACCLESFIELD. 65 



similar character to tlie cemetery-beds, except that the dry- 

 sand is somewhat clogged, and in places interleaved as it 

 were, by a reddish clay, full of, and frequently laminated 

 by, layers of very small scales of mica. 



Under somewhat unfavourable meteorological conditions, 

 I made out the height to be from 1 1 20 to 1 1 60 feet above 

 the sea-level. At this spot I picked out from amongst 

 fine shingle, stratified in beds of rounded but, so far as 

 I noted, unscratched stones, fragments of 12 species, as 

 follows : — 



Psammolia ferroensis. 

 Tellina solidula. 

 Mactra. 



Cytherea chione (a characteristic 

 hinge-fragment, and another). 

 Artemis lincta. 

 Astarte arctica. 



Cardium echinatum. 



Cardium edule. 



Mytilus. 



Turritella communis. 



Fusus antiquus. 



Trophon. 



The occurrence of the Cytherea in this bed at a height 

 of 600 feet above the beds examined on the west of Maccles- 

 field is very curious, and adds a formidable consideration 

 to the many difficulties which seem as yet to delay the 

 solution of the " Drift " problem. 



The two beds appear to have been deposited under very 

 similar conditions, and alike belong, I believe, to the beds 

 which the Ordnance Geologists intercalcate between their 

 higher and lower Boulder- clays. I understand that the 

 higher clay has not been proved above Mr. Prestwich's 

 patch. 



It is difficult to conceive of the deposit of a continuous 

 bed of shingle 600 feet deep, with precisely similar fossils 

 in its highest and lowest layers, and of the removal of the 

 whole of this formation except a few patches of each layer 

 lying within a space of 6 miles. It is more difficult to 

 suppose that the cemetery -beds can be a redistribution of 

 such portions of Mr. Prestwich's gravel as the wave of a 

 retreating sea carried away while the land was rising. It 



SEE. III. VOL. III. F 



