Geological Society. 321 



1. "On the Evidence of a ridge of Lower Carboniferous Hocks 

 crossing the Plain of Cheshire beneath the Trias, and forming the 

 boundary between the Permian Rocks of the Lancashire type on the 

 North and those of the Salopian type on the South." By Edward 

 Hull, Esq., M.A., F.R.S., F.G.S. 



In this paper the author proposed to account for the dissimilarity 

 of mineral and stratigraphical characters of the Permian formation 

 of Lancashire and the North of England as compared with that of 

 the Midland Counties and Shropshire, on the ground that they had 

 originally been deposited in separate basins, divided off from each 

 other by a ridge of Lower Carboniferous rocks, stretching from west 

 to east, under the central plain of Cheshire. 



The author showed that there was evidence of such a ridge on the 

 east side of the plain of Cheshire, by the uprise of the Lower Car- 

 boniferous rocks to the north of Congleton Edge, in the valley of 

 the River Dane, and that the date of this uprise and the denudation 

 of the Upper Carboniferous beds along the axis of elevation was 

 clearly determined to be antecedent to the Permian period by the 

 outlier of Permian rocks at Rushton Spencer. 



On the west side of the plain there was evidence of a similar axis of 

 upheaval to the south of the Flintshire Coal-field near Hope, where 

 the Lower Carboniferous rocks (Yoredale and Millstone beds) are 

 brought up to the surface at the margin of the New Red Sandstone. 



Mr. Hull regarded the uprise on each side of the plain as 

 referable to the same Prepermian age, and as belonging to the East 

 and West system of flexures into which the Carboniferous rocks 

 were thrown at the close of the Carboniferous period over the north 

 of England. Such an axis had its antetype in the concealed ridge 

 which once occupied the valley of the Severn, and divided the Devo- 

 nian rocks of Devonshire from those of South Wales ; and the author 

 suggested that a similar ridge, now concealed beneath the Triassic 

 formation of Cheshire, offered the only satisfactory explanation of 

 the dissimilarity in the two types of Permian beds — that of Lanca- 

 shire, and that of Shropshire and the Midland Counties. 



2. " On the Red Chalk of Hunstanton." By the Rev. T. Wilt- 

 shire, M.A., F.L.S., F.G.S. 



The author described the section exposed in Hunstanton Cliff as 

 showing: — 1. White Chalk with fragments of Inocerami. 2. White 

 Chalk with Siphonia paradoocica, having its base undulated and 

 the cavities filled up with a thin bright red, argillaceous layer, resting 

 upon (3) the Red Chalk, which is divisible into three sections : — a, 

 hard, containing Avicula grypTiceoides and Siphonia paradoarica, and 

 with fragments of Inocerami at its base ; b, hard, rich in Belemnites ; 

 c, incoherent at its base, rich in Terebratulce. 4. Carstone, a yellow, 

 coarse, sandy deposit, resting on a bed of clay, containing no fossils 

 in its upper part, but with a band of nodules containing Ammonites 

 Deshayesii and other species about 30 feet down, together with 

 ironstone nodules like those of the Lower Greensand of the Isle of 

 Wight, and bearing impressions of fossils which correlate the lower 

 part of the Carstone with the base of the English Lower Greensand. 



