808 T. M. EEADE ON A SECTION THEOTTGH 



47. On a Section through Glazebeook Moss, Lancashiee. 

 By T. Mellaed Reade, Esq., C.E., F.G.S. (Bead June 19, 1878.) 



The Wigan Junction Railway now being constructed runs, for the 

 length of a mile, through Glazebrook Moss. Walking from Glaze- 

 brook Station, on the Cheshire Lines Railway, towards Kenyon 

 Junction, on the old Liverpool and Manchester Railway, we come, 

 in about half a mile, upon the edge of the Moss, and here the Wigan 

 Junction Railway goes through it in a cutting. In the deepest part 

 the moss is about 18 feet from the actual surface to the boulder-clay 

 on which it rests ; but the drainage produced by the cutting has 

 caused the moss to siuk from 7 to 8 feet on either side in its 

 vicinity. 



The bulk of the moss is of the ordinary nature, and looks, on 

 drying, more like sawdust than any thing else. Near the base, for 

 3 or 4 feet upwards, are the remains of trees — branches imbedded 

 in the peat. Where the peat has been excavated down to the 

 boulder- clay the stools of trees, in the position they had grown in, 

 are now to be seen ; they are, with one exception, so far as I saw, 

 either oak or birch ; and the whole of the peat being removed from 

 about them shows very plainly the roots penetrating into the clay. 

 The upper layer of clay is of a grey colour, and is evidently the 

 top-wash of the boulder-clay. A splendid prostrate trunk of an 

 oak was bared when I viewed the cutting ; it measured 46 feet long 

 as far as exposed, and was fully 3 feet in diameter, without the bark, 

 in the straight part of the trunk above the root. A very strong root 

 was attached to it. The tree had evidently been uprooted by being 

 blown over ; it was lying in a north-easterly direction. I calculate 

 there was 200 cubic feet of timber in the exposed part. The trunk 

 was very straight and free from branches. 



Mr. Lambert, the contractor's agent, informed me that another 

 trunk had been found of the same diameter and 60 feet long. The 

 wood, on being cut into, was very wet and of a very bright orange- 

 yellow, but on being exposed to the air for a few hours the surface 

 became dark brown. At first sight the timber looked very un- 

 like oak. 



At the south end of the Moss the surface-level is 59*46 feet above 

 Ordnance-datum ; and at the north end the natural surface of the 

 clay land is 60*31 feet above same datum. The summit-level of the 

 Moss is 78*70 feet ; the surface of the Boulder-clay is therefore nearly 

 level, and the Moss is like a protuberance upon it : this is the reason 

 it has had to be cut through. It is probable that the accumulated 

 decay of the forest and change of climate * have produced the Moss ; 



* In my " Post-Glacial Geology of Lancashire and Cheshire" (Proc. Liver- 

 pool Ceol. Soc. Session 1871-72, p. 73) I suggested that the remains of these 

 ancient forests are the representatives of continental conditions and a drier 

 climate 



