478 



THE GEOLOGIST. 



then existed in the condition of a transparent and permanent gas, mingled 

 with the atmosphere surrounding the earth, and protecting it like a dome 

 of glass. To this effect of carbonic acid it is possible that other gases may 

 have contributed. The ozone, which is mingled with the oxygen set free 

 from growing plants, and the marsh gas, which is now evolved from de- 

 composing vegetation under conditions similar to those then presented by 

 the coal-fields, may, by their great absorptive power, have very well aided 

 to maintain at the earth's surface that high temperature the cause of which 

 has been one of the enigmas of geology." 



EE VIEWS. 



The Geology of the Country round Liverpool. By Geo. H. Morton, F.G.S. 



Towards the close of 1861 a lecture was delivered to the Liverpool Na- 

 turalists' Field Club by the author, " On the Geology of the Country round 

 Liverpool," which the Council of that Institution at once decided to pub- 

 lish. Since that period the author has re-surveyed and confirmed his 

 original investigations, and otherwise matured and improved his work for 

 presentation to the public. Ten years ago the subdivisions and super- 

 position of the Triassic rocks in this district had not been determined, al- 

 though Mr. Cunningham had as early as 1838 made known the occurrence 

 of fossil footprints in the strata of the Storeton quarries ; and it was not 

 until Mr. Hull, who had then just completed his examination of the dis- 

 trict for the Government Geological Survey, read a paper on the results 

 of his labours before the British Association in 1854, that the details of 

 these important beds were published. The book before us gives a concise 

 and admirably clear account of the Liverpool district, commencing with 

 the physical features of the country and the geological systems and forma- 

 tions exhibited to obtain it. These consist of the coal-measures, and Trias, 

 and Pleistocene deposits, including boulder-clay, and submarine forests. 

 The faults, denudations of the beds, and general geological history of 

 the district, are also treated with accuracy and perspicuity of description. 

 The numerous plates and woodcuts give well-selected examples of fossils 

 and geological and physical phenomena. These include a view of the sub- 

 marine forest of Leasowe at Dove Point, sections from the river Dee to 

 Hayton, of the strata round Liverpool, through the coal-measures at 

 Prescot, of the Lower Soft Bed and Variegated Sandstone at Toxeth Park ; 

 of the pebble-beds at Eastham, through Fairbrick and Bidston Hills, 

 showing the junction of the Upper Soft Bed and Variegated Sandstone 

 with the overlying Keuper Sandstone, of the Keuper at Liverpool and 

 Wirral, of the strata along the three railway tunnels under the town, 

 through the Lower Keuper at Storeton, across Wallasey Pool showing 

 the submarine forest bed, along the Cheshire coast, from the lighthouse, 

 Dove Point, Leasowe ; and plates of the footprints of the Cheirotherium , 

 Rhynchosaurus, and other fossils. The accounts of the post-glacial de- 

 posits are exceedingly interesting. The elevated ridges of sandstone tra- 

 versing the district from north to south are generally free from drift, while 

 the depth of the intervening valleys had been diminished by thick accu- 

 mulation. The river Mersey occupies what was once the deepest of these 

 valleys. From his examination of the shores, Mr. Morton considers the 



