1869.] MACKIN-TOSH LANCASHIRE AND CrMBERLAND DRIFTS. 413 



spot for studying the prevailing character of the hard stony clay 

 (Lower Boulder-clay). In the lower part especially, it looks like a 

 kneaded mass of clay, grit, and stones of various sizes. Grains and 

 small fragments, as well as good-sized stones of quartz, here enter 

 considerably into its composition, and give it a speckled appearance. 

 Many of the stones are igneous or metamorphic : some are well 

 rounded; but generally speaking they appear little more than blunted 

 or rubbed, as if they had been pushed along. Most of them are 

 more or less scratched and striated. 



Eig. 3.— Transverse Coast-section of Drift to tlie north of Uncle Tom's 

 Cabin. (Cliff about 70 feet in height.) 



B, 



-il'^-^^l 





A. Upper Boulder-clay. B. Middle sand, gravel, and " rockery." 

 C. Lower Boulder-clay. 



e. Postglacial Deposits. — On the coast south of Poxhall Inn, and 

 extending far in a southerly direction, a Postglacial clay may be 

 traced. Near its northern termination, and some distance out at 

 sea, I found a thin remnant of it resting on the Lower Boulder- clay. 

 It is well exposed on the shore near the promenade now in course of 

 being constructed (December 1868)*. It may be about 15 feet in 

 thickness. It is of a very soft and yielding character, and here and 

 there exhibits curved lamination. It is more or less charged with 

 decayed vegetation, and in many places is full of very small stones, 

 generally smaller than a pea. The lower part, called Scotch slutcTi, 

 is of a light bluish-grey colour ; the uppermost foot, called white ore 

 or stepmother^ s jag, of a very light grey hue. It includes at least one 

 thin layer of peaty matter. On the coast it is overlain by a bed of peat 

 between 2 and 3 feet thick. Inland it varies in thickness, and here 

 and there thins out, as if it had been accumulated in hollows, 

 and it is generally overlain by peat, which in many places is covered 

 with stratified sandf. The latter would appear to have been de- 

 posited when the land was slightly lower relatively to the sea than 

 at present, though it ought not to be forgotten that this area is still 

 subject to high- tide inundations. A part of the low ground behind 

 Southshore was formerly occupied by Marton MereJ, in the bed of 

 which, the Bev. Mr. Thornber informed me, the skin of a British 

 canoe (the wickerwork decayed) was found many years ago §. 



^ It is possible that some of the coast-sections described in this paper may 

 have been destroyed or confusedly mixed up with artificial accumulations by 

 the tides of January and February 1869. 



t The stratified sand is replaced by or covered with blown sand between South 

 Shore and Lytham. 



\ The site of a mere near Southport is called Marten. 



§ We may soon expect from Mr. De Bance (of the Geological Survey) the 



2r2 



