1870.] DE RANCE—LANCASHIRE AND CHESHIRE POSTGLACIAL. 659 
in a pond, and it appears to rest directly on the Boulder-clay, in the 
sluice bank. A little south, at the foot of the embankment, on the 
shore, a thin seam of peat, resting on about 16 inches of grey clay, is 
seen lying on the Boulder-clay. The surface of the peat, between 
high- and low-water mark, is planted, so to speak, at every 20 yards, 
with a double row of young saplings, apparently hazels, about 3 feet 
apart, running in parallels diagonally to the shore in a north-west 
and south-east direction. Their roots are in the grey clay; but 
there is some reason to believe that they were planted at acompara- 
tively late date, as I was able to trace the “ grey clay” in question 
to an horizon above that of the thick peat, which has so great a de- 
velopment on either side of the sea-bank. 
From the end of the bank to the river Dee, at Hoylake, the coast 
is bordered by sand hills, occupying a tract about half a mile in 
breadth, and through which the Hoylake and Birkenhead Railway 
is built. Beneath the sand dunes at Dove Marks (fig. 3), east of 
Hoylake, the following succession of beds occurs :— 
feet. 
ll, LTTE MID UCOCACUTLINE PENI \ Godndooccsps0caqosedqob doco sdonsdeoGADdabaeneseos 2-4 
2. Peat. This bed occasionally appears to have formed a cultivated 
surface before the deposition of the sand ..............0sseeeeeeeeeee es 1 
_ 3. Tellina-balthica sand, with seams of bluish clay. This is apparently 
the seam in which Mr. Ecroyd Smith has recorded the presence 
Ol Saxonyance Romane cOMmMs:p er neseeeredeeeeeceeceeeeeceeceatesaeee eeeeeee 2 
4. Peat. The representative of the thick peat of Lancashire and 
(Cheshire ye ease cermee eon enna cise abate satan taa nuance minuislssoia 3 
5. Bluish-grey clay, the upper portion of freshwater origin ............ 3 
i ht the lower of marine, and containing Scrobicu- 
ULIFUG soscapeonbbaseanctncacudcbprOson Ee OSobRE ie OuDHE ERC Oh nERCOR ere RCE NTes 1 
6. Peat, with a few stumps of trees with their roots im ............2-+.+- 14 
7. Boulder-clay. From half-tide to the lowest water-mark. 
In the lowest'peat (6) no historical or natural remains have, I be- 
lieve, ever been found ; but some of the flint weapons in the Liverpool 
Museum are believed to have come out of this seam, others from the 
base of the peat above. In addition to the flint weapons, Mr. Keroyd 
Smith * believes it to contain bones of Bos primigenius and Megaceros 
hibernicus, and of Cetacea; but these bones, I think, possibly are 
those that were found in the blue silt resting on a peat-bed with a 
forest on its surface, in excavating Wallasey Pool for docks in 1858, 
and which have been described by Mr. T. J. Moore in the ‘ Lanca- 
shire Historic Society’s Transactions.’ In this case they are more 
probably of the age of the Tellina-balthica sand, as the peat in Wal- 
lasey Pool no doubt belongs to the main or thick peat of the district, 
which, near the Birket, attains a thickness of nearly 20 feet. In 
this peat bones of horses, oxen, and deer have been found, as well as 
great numbers of Roman and Saxon coins, and in one portion arrow- 
heads of stone, shell, and flint. The latter substance must have been 
brought to the spot, either from southern counties or from eastern 
Yorkshire. Great numbers of coins of all ages are constantly being 
* ©Reliquary,’ April 1865; also, Rev. A. Hume, LL.D., in ‘ Ancient Meols;’ 
Morton’s ‘ Geology of Liverpool,’ p. 49; ‘ Proc. of Hist. Soc. of Lancashire and 
Cheshire’ for various years. 
