42 



MR. E. W. BINNEY ON THE 



servations were made before the publication of Mr. HulFs 

 memoir. 



Skillaw Clough Section. 



(Distance about half a mile.) 



Mr. Eceles's 

 farm-house. 



This section is met with about a mile to the north of 

 Newburgh Station^, on the Wigan and Southport Railway. 

 On entering the Clough from the upper part^ we come to 

 some flags and shales of a purple colour^ which have a 

 general dip of about 16° to the south-west. They continue 

 several hundred yards^ and appear to belong to the lower 

 coal-measures. Just before they disappear^ these strata 

 dip due west at an angle of 25°, and are traversed by thin 

 veins of carbonate of lime ; then drift-clay intervenes, so 

 that the strata are not visible for 10 yards, most probably 

 owing to the occurrence of a fault in the interval. When 

 the beds are again seen, we find a permian rock in the 

 form of a dark-red sandstone, fine-grained and canky, 

 which dips due west at an angle of 25°. Over 10 yards 

 this sandstone is seen gradually becoming coarser in grain, 

 and dipping to the west at an angle of 30°. It continues 

 for 25 yards further, when its dip reaches 40° to the west, 

 and no trace of a conglomerate-bed is observed. Then 

 come 24 yards of red and variegated shaly clays, succeeded 

 by a bed of yellow compact limestone 4 feet 6 inches in 

 thickness. This is quite unlike any of the permian lime- 

 stones of the south and west of Lancashire which have 

 been previously seen by me ; but it much resembles in 

 chemical composition, colour, and structure the limestone 



