Manchester Memoirs, Vol. Ixii. (1918), No. 11. 9 



Hill and in Pendleton. In none of these places is there any definite 

 covering of Boulder-clay. Near the 275-foot contour-line sandy clays 

 occur locally ; sometimes they have been dug out, showing a thick- 

 ness of 5 to 10 feet. They are not brick clays, and can be seen 

 thinning out on all sides. 



It is therefore evident that round Manchester the thick sands 

 have no covering of Boulder-clay and that they may or may not over- 

 lie clay, so that the clay deposits as well as the sands are lenticles. 



The appended sections (pp. 10-13), to which reference has 

 been made, are only a few of those which give a detailed account 

 of the Drift, down to the rock. They include the only complete 

 available records of borings in and around the neighbourhood of 

 the Glacial sands, together with a few from the Hyde and Ashton- 

 under-L}me area, which were selected because, according to Hull, 

 Upper Boulder-clay should have been visible in that district. 



The other sections from the Manchester district, which cover an 

 area about four times as large as that from which these were taken, 

 show no sand-beds of any appreciable thickness. 



Thickness of the Drift 



As might be expected, the Drift is thinnest in the present river 

 valleys. In Salford, Old Trafford and Hulme the general depth of 

 the solid below the surface has not been yet shown to reach as much 

 as 50 feet. An exception to this is seen in Trafford Park, where the 

 bore-hole of the British Steel and Wire Company proved the depth of 

 the pre-Glacial surface to be 94 feet below present sea-level, giving a 

 thickness of 175 feet of Drift. It is impossible in this area to distin- 

 guish definitely between Glacial and post-Glacial deposits, though, 

 judging from the recorded sections, it is highly probable that they 

 are mainly alluvium. 



East and north of this the Drift thickens considerably, though 

 on the low ridge to the north of Fallowfield Station it is practically 

 absent. In Levenshulme, by Albert Road and Stockport Road, it 

 is over 50 feet thick, and at Levenshulme Print Works 82 feet. In 

 the Openshaw, Ardwick and Bradford areas the thickness runs well 

 above 50 feet. One boring in Openshaw shows 135 feet of Drift. 



Round Hyde and Ashton the Drift thickens out ; at Hyde, and 

 in the Lordsfield and Ashton Moss Colliery sections' it is over 100 

 feet thick, though at Hyde Lane it diminishes to 66| feet. The 

 Newton Heath sections give a thickness of about 100 feet. North 

 of this the Glacial deposits again thicken. At the Moston Pits they 

 •are 170 and 174 feet, on Kersall Moor and Higher Blackley they have 

 been estimated to be over 200 feet in thickness, and at Boggart Hole 

 Clough they cannot be much less. At Failsworth and Hollinwood 

 these deposits thin somewhat, being only about 100 feet thick, but 

 at Heaton Park and Alkrington the thickness is 143 and 162 feet 

 respectively, and at Middleton Junction 127 feet. 



Farther west, at Prestwich, the asylum boring passed through 



