TRIASSIC STRATA OF LANCASHIRE. 113 



The soft yellow and variegated sandstones of Whiston, 

 Croxteth Park_, and Huyton, all resting unconformably on 

 coal-nieasures_, described by Mr. Hull^ are evidently of the 

 same age as the Rainford and Grimshaw Delph beds. 

 Unfortunately in no instance have any red marls been yet 

 found lying either above or below them. I have described 

 the two latter as Permian^ whilst Mr. Hull thinks they are 

 the lower red and mottled sandstone of the Trias. But with 

 respect to the Knowsley duarry^ it so much resembles the 

 St. Bees and Hawcoat Upper Permian sandstones that^ if 

 they were found in Furness^ Sir B. I. Murchison and 

 Professor Harkness would_, without doubt^ claim them as 

 Permian. 



It is many years since I first saw the Knowsley Quarry, 

 and I then in my note-book remarked that these sand- 

 stones, especially that belonging to Mr. Littler, could not 

 be distinguished from the Upper Permian sandstones of the 

 neighbourhood of Dumfries, which I had just returned 

 from examining. Now, if they can be proved to imme- 

 diately overlie the coarse-grained, false-bedded, soft red 

 and mottled sandstones of Whiston and Croxteth Park, 

 both the latter as well as the former will have to be classed 

 as Permian rocks, according to the present geological no- 

 menclature of the north-west of England; and I think 

 that the new sections I now describe at Boach Bridge, 

 Cockersand Abbey, and Bobshaw Point tend to confirm 

 this view. 



In all the quarries of Lancashire where the Trias sand- 

 stones have been wrought, I have never seen so hard and 

 thin-bedded a stone as that found at Knowsley. It was 

 formerly used for paving-sets in Liverpool ; and large 

 quantities of it were broken for road-metal purposes, for 

 which I have seldom known a Trias rock used. Some of its 

 beds also afforded fine-grained flags, with faces as smooth 

 as any Permian sandstone I have ever seen in the neighbour- 



SER. III. VOL. III. I 



