192 



THE GEOLOGIST. 



he has been made the victim of an exceedingly ingenious fraud by those 

 workmen whom for years he has encouraged and liberally paid, we hope 

 the proprietors of the quarry will reward their dishonesty and avarice, 

 whenever it is brought home to them, in the summary manner they richly 

 deserve. On M. de Perthes' side something is yet to be said ; and if he 

 has been led on by his enthusiasm to too implicit a belief in the workmen's 

 veracity, he has kept back nothing, suppressed nothing, but has courted 

 every publicity, and has done his utmost to secure competent witnesses for 

 every phase of what he still considers an important discovery ; if he should 

 not in this case have that glory and good fortune he has so earnestly 

 sought for so many years, the day will come when indeed his predictions 

 will be verified, and we hope his life may be spared for that occasion, 

 that his own hand shall draw forth from the gravel-beds their rare but 

 precious proofs. 



PROCEEDINGS OF GEOLOGICAL SOCIETIES. 



Manchester Geological Society. — February 24>th. — Mr. Whitaker 

 produced two horses' teeth and a flint arrow-head, which he said came out 

 of the drift gravel at Barrowford, a few miles north of Burnley. 



1. l< On the Drift Deposits near Burnley," by T. T. Wilkinson, F.R.A.S. 

 The drift deposits in the vicinity of Burnley, as well as those near Man- 

 chester, appear to possess several features of considerable importance, 

 for, in addition to the usual clay and gravel, they contain pebbles and 

 masses of foreign rocks, some of which are well water-worn, whilst others 

 are so fresh and angular as to admit of scarcely any other explanation 

 of their presence there than by iceberg-carriage from a great distance. 

 A little east of the Four Lane Ends, near Blackburn, 650 feet above the 

 level of the sea, the drift immediately overlies the Rough Rock, which 

 crops out above the Corporation Park at an angle of about 75°. On the 

 crest of this hill the blue clay, from which bricks have recently been made, 

 lies upon the surface. It is, however, too much intermixed with sand, from 

 the disintegration of the rock, to form good bricks. The pebbles and 

 boulders contained in the clay appear mostly to belong to the Carboniferous 

 formations, and their water-worn appearance indicates long-continued de- 

 nuding action by water. Limestone and gannister pebbles occur in abun- 

 dance ; the former must have been drifted from a considerable distance. 



Extensive deposits of yellowish sand occur opposite Portlield, near 

 Whalley, 196 feet above the level of the sea; at Whittle Field, near Barn- 

 ley, 451 feet above the level of the sea ; and also at Healey Hall, on the 

 slope of Burnley Moor, 580 feet above the level of the sea. Masses, or 

 veins, of hard carbonaceous matter are occasionally found in this sand, 



!)robably indicating the remains of former vegetation ; but as yet no shells 

 lave been detected in these deposits. 



At the Quarry, near Habergham Hall, the sandstone rock immediately 

 overlies the Dandy Bed of the Burnley coal-field. The surface of the rock 

 is there covered with a coating of soft loamy shale, which soon passes into 

 clay on exposure to the atmosphere. This shale is almost wholly com- 

 posed of calamites, ferns, sigillaria, etc., indicating a profuse vegetation, 

 which must have been covered by succeeding deposits in comparatively 

 stagnant water. Above this shale there is a bed of dense blue clay, 22 

 foot thick, containing fragments of cannel coal, etc., the debris of still 

 higher strata. Rough rock- and grit-boulders, portions of encrinital lime- 



