98 T. M. EEADE ON THE EKIFT-BEDS OF THE 



I examined these excavations in May 1872, and again in January 

 1875. Turner's Side Trench, a bend in Turner's Trench along the 

 side of the hill, showed a section of coal-shales, with an angular 

 rubble debris resting on the upturned edges of the shale (fig. 14). 

 Upon this lay a patch of sand and gravel, current-bedded, the whole 

 being overlain by brown clay with boulders. At another point in the 

 reservoir the side of the hill was being excavated for clay for the 

 puddle walls, and for material to form the embankments (see fig. 15). 

 The working face was 200 feet long and 16 feet deep. The lower 

 stratum was of Boulder-clay, blue-grey in colour, unlaminated, and 

 very hard, but falling with water. The clay was very full of pebbles 

 and Millstone-grit boulders up to 8 tons in weight, which had to be 

 blasted. I have since seen the Scotch Till, and find this Yarrow 

 Boulder-clay to be a deposit apparently identical with that found on 

 the Carboniferous areas of the Clyde and Forth *.' 



Upon this " Till" lay a brown clay containing angular fragments 

 of Coal-measure shales ; and the whole was capped by a yellowish 

 clay about 3 feet thick. There were no signs of shells or shell- 

 fragments about ; nor had any been found. The deposit was evi- 

 dently unfossiliferous. In 1875 I saw a similar excavation, also on 

 the west side of the valley, in the Till, which was of a grey colour 

 and full of limestone, granite, syenite, and greenstone boulders, all 

 rounded and slightly scratched indefinitely over the whole surface. 

 The limestone showed the scratches plainly. The deposit was hard 

 and compact, requiring a pick to disturb it ; and, as I noted at the 

 time, it answered to the description of the Scotch Till, which I have 

 since verified by examination. 



The level of the reservoir is about the 500 feet contour. At Ad- 

 lington, at a lower level, I found a clay used for making bricks 

 similar to our marine Boulder-clay, but containing more pieces of 

 shale, and in it one small fragment of a bivalve. 



So far I have confined my description entirely to personal obser- 

 vations. Over so large an area as the Mersey-basin, containing some 

 1748 square miles, there are necessarily numerous places left entirely 

 undescribed. Still I think sufficient has been given to form a fair 

 general view of the distribution of the Drift in it. It would be 

 only wearisome iteration to go on further describing section after 

 section. 



Before proceeding to describe the deposits in other river-basins, it 

 will be well, while the facts are in our minds, to try if we can 

 discover any general principle which will connect all these detached 

 observations. 



Observations on the preceding Sections. 

 A glance at the large map I have prepared (PL V.), showing the 

 position of the preceding drift-sections in relation to the geological 

 formations and drainage-lines of the country, shows at once that 

 there is an intimate connexion between them and the nature and 

 distribution of the Drift. The greatest depth of Boulder-clay is at 



* " The G-lacial-beds or the Clyde and Forth," Liverpool Geol. Soc, Session 

 1879-80, pp. 139-153. 



