NORTH-WEST OE ENGLAND AND NORTH WALES. 95 



rock. Eesting upon an uneven surface of this bed was a bed of 

 current-bedded sand and gravel, 2. Above this occurred lenticular 

 patches of clay, 3, almost forming a continuous bed, and of irregular 

 thickness. The whole was capped by stratified sands and gravels, 

 4 and 5, and surface soil, 6. The river Mersey runs in a valley 

 much below the level of this drift ; and no doubt there has been 

 considerable river-denudation. 



Pig. 11. — Section in Ballast-pit, Stockport. 



1. Light yellow sand, contorted. 



2. Obliquely stratified sands and gravels. 3. Clay. 

 4. Stratified sand. 5. Gravel. (5. Soil. 



Hazel Grove. — A somewhat similar series of sand and gravel beds 

 on a small scale occurs at Hazel Grove; and there are many Triassic 

 and Carboniferous pebbles in it. 



Poynton. — Boulder-clay is to be seen in a brick-pit at Poynton. 

 The erratic stones are distinguished by being very much weathered. 

 The nature of the clay is evidently affected by the neighbourhood 

 of the hills of Carboniferous sandstones and shales, being of an 

 arenaceous nature and of a yellowish hue. It appears to rest upon 

 a sand like that of the Macclesfield-Cemetery beds. 



Macclesfield. — About the same date I also examined the Maccles- 

 fleld-Cemetery beds described by Mr. K. D. Darbishire, P.GLS., in 

 1865 *. The section exhibited a considerable thickness of current- 

 bedded yellow sands and gravels with shell-fragments. Mr. Darbi- 

 shire estimates these beds at 70 feet thick, and states that they 

 rest on Boulder-clay. He enumerates 49 species of marine shells 

 from them. The elevation above the sea is stated at from 500 to 

 600 feet. 



Beyond the bridge over the Macclesfield canal, at about 550 feet 

 above ordnance datum, was a brick-yard consisting of purple-red 

 clay covered with yellowish arenaceous clay. The contained stones 

 were more rounded and weathered than those about Liverpool. I 

 found several flints, one being about 2 \ inches in diameter. 



In a stream by the " Setter Dog " was to be seen the drift- 

 gravel first described by Mr. Prestwich. The gravel is very pecu- 

 liar, being full of loamy matter; and along wdth well-worn travelled 

 gravel are angular, subangular, and flat flaggy pieces of Carboni- 

 ferous sandstone. It is very singular to find this isolated patch of 

 marine gravel full of shell-fragments among these hills. The neigh- 

 bouring hills have only a thin covering of subaerial detritus ; but 

 erratics of Buttermere syenite and greenstone are to be found scat- 

 tered over them as far as the " Bow Stones." I saw no evidences of 



* Memoirs of the Literary and Philodophical Society of Manchester, 

 vol. iii. series ii. pp. 56-66. 



