Manchester Memoirs, Vol. Ixii. (1918), No. 9. 9 



encroachment of the sea, and very much of the Lower Forest-bed has 

 been washed away. 



According to Morton (op. cit., p. 236), the spring tides cover the 

 Upper Forest-bed 3 feet, while the Lower Forest-bed is about 8 feet 

 below the level of an ordinary spring tide. 



Much difficulty is experienced in tracing the Lower Forest-bed 

 in other parts of the Mersey district owing to the large amount of 

 denudation it appears to have undergone previous to the deposition 

 of the overlying beds. Where visible, or where proved by borings, 

 it generally rests on Boulder-clay, the upper part of which is of a 

 bluish colour for a depth of 6 inches to 1 foot, caused by the abstrac- 

 tion of the peroxide of iron through the action of decomposed organic 

 matter. Possibly this upper portion is to some extent redistributed 

 Boulder-clay, as it is very full of pebbles. It is exposed at Dove 

 Point, and is the bed from which I obtained the wind-eroded pebbles 

 described in previous pages. 



Regarding the contemporaneous human history connected with 

 these deposits, the evidence is far from being as complete as could 

 be desired. De Ranee (op. cit., p. 659) observes that no historical or 

 natural remains have ever been found in the Lower Forest-bed, but 

 that the oldest relics of man, consisting of implements of Neolithic 

 age, have been met with in the lower clay and silt below the Upper 

 Forest-bed. 



There seems to be a general consensus of opinion that the Lower 

 Forest-bed has yielded no evidence of man, and that the Roman 

 and later antiquities found on the surface of the Upper Forest-bed 

 have all been washed out of an overlying soil at the base of the sand- 

 hills by the encroachment of the sea. 



The position of the Lower Forest -bed with regard to the Glacial 

 deposits is interesting in view of the fact that similar relations exist 

 elsewhere in the British Isles. These relations have been dealt with 

 in detail by Coffey and Praeger in their paper on " The Larne Raised 

 Beach." x They regard the sequence displayed by the Belfast and 

 Larne post-Glacial deposits as being in close agreement with similar 

 series in Central Scotland, Northern England, and more especially 

 in the Mersey area. In each of the areas dealt with by these 

 authorities an identical series of beds appears to have been deposited 

 •on a former land surface of Boulder-clay. So close is the corre- 

 spondence that the whole can be arranged in parallel columns. 



The chief point of interest in connection with the Larne and 

 Belfast deposits is the fact that some portions at least can be dated 

 with a certain degree of accuracy, owing to the presence of Neolithic 

 flint implements. These occur in nearly the whole thickness of the 

 Larne beach deposits, and from this it is concluded that Neolithic 

 man was on the ground during the submergence that allowed of the 

 continued laying down of the Larne gravels. In the Belfast area 

 the Neolithic period has been correlated with the upper portion of 

 the estuarine clays, etc., overlying the oldest post-Glacial land surface 



1 Proc. Roy. Irish Acad., Vol. XXV., Sect. C, No. 6, December. 1904, 

 3>p. 143200, PI. IV.-IX. 



