Vol. 54.] POST-GL\CIAL BEDS OF THE NEW BRUGES CANAL. 675 



37. Post-Glacial Bebs exposed in the Cutting of the new Bruges 



Canal. By T. Mellard Eeade, Esq., C.E., E.G.S. (Bead 



June 22nd, 1898.) 



[Abridged.] 



When in Belgium in the spring of 1897 as the guest of Prof. A. 

 Benard, of Ghent University, I travelled with him to the coast, to 

 see the excavations of the new Bruges Canal near Heyst, about 

 6 kilometres from Blankenberghe, a well-known Elemish watering- 

 place. The beds exposed by the excavations bore so striking 

 a resemblance to those which I have studied and mapped in the 

 neighbourhood of Liverpool that I examined them with great 

 interest, and succeeded in identifying the several beds with the 

 deposits carefully mapped in detail by the Belgian Geological 

 Survey on the ^i^^ scale. The following beds, enumerated in 

 descending order, were found : — 



5. Argile des polders superieure, equivalent to the Marsh Clay of 



England. 

 4. Cardinm \edule]-sfindi. 

 3. Argile des polders inferieure. 

 2. Scrobicularia \jila7ia\-c\a.y . 

 1. Peat. 



The junction between the clay and the peat is very inconstant ; 

 in one place it may be seen markedly distinct and horizontal, and in 

 another very irregular, as if intersected with gullies which had 

 afterwards become filled with the Scrobicularia-olay, w^hile above 

 in the base of the clay thin seams of peat are seen intercalated. 

 It is precisely the sort of interchange of Scrohicularia-clay and 

 peat that I described as occurring near Southport and at Birkdale 

 in a paper read before the Liverpool Geological Society in 1871.^ I 

 took out of this clay Scrohicularice in the vertical attitude of life, 

 just as they occur in our own Eormby and Leasowe Marine Beds. 



Specimens were taken of the Argile des polders superieure 

 or Marsh Clay and of the Scrobicularia lylana-clny, and were 

 afterwards mechanically analysed and microscopically examined, 

 with the following results : — • 



Argile des polders superieure. 



Weight before washing 4oz. = l*000 



Weight after washing : — 



Eetained in the T/g-inch mesh "0005 



j> >> zo J) >> 'OulO 



>j j> Too >> >> 'UU/o 



Passed the ^ J ^-inch mesh, and deposited by subsidence "3854; 



•3947 

 Sand = 39 per cent. ; clay = 61 per cent. 



^ ' The Geology & Phydtss of the Po-^t-Ghicial Period as shown in the 

 Deposits & Organic Remains in L:ineashire & CiiesLiire,' Proc. L'pool Geol. Soe. 

 1871-72, pp. 36-88, with four coloured plates of maps and sections. 



Q. J. G. S. No. 215. 2 r 



