PROCEEDIi^GS or GEOLOGICAL SOCIETIES. 
69 
places are met witli under Permian and Trias deposits mucli nearer the 
surface than was previously suspected, and where the upper rocks gave no 
evidence of their x^roximity. The above bore has proved beyond doubt 
that a band of coal-measures lies under the south of Chorlton-on-Medlock, 
and possibly extends to Heaton Norris, being probably brought up by the 
great Pendleton fault, which most likely passes through the south of Man- 
chester and joins the fault seen near the railway station at Heaton Norris 
previously alluded to. 
In the fourth section, at Ordsal, Messrs. Worrall found the Trias beds 
four hundred and sixty feet in thickness without going through them. At 
the bottom of the bore the water became so salt that they discontinued the 
work, it being no longer fit for dj^eing and such-like purposes. This is the 
first instance, to the author's knowledge, where salt water has been met 
with in the Trias near Manchester. 
The fifth and sixth sections were at Skillaw Clough and Bentley Brook, 
to the north of the Newburgh station on the Manchester and Southport 
railway. These were some time since discovered by Mr. E. Hull, of the 
Geological Survey, and described shortly by that gentleman in the sheet 
explaining the map of the district. Further particulars were given of the 
details of both sections, and an analysis of the limestone was produced, 
which showed it to differ in its chemical characters from the thin ribbon- 
bands found in the Permian marls near Manchester, Patricroft, Astley, 
and Leigh ; it was very like the yellow magnesian limestone found at 
Stank, in Furness, North Lancashire. Probably it might prove to be a 
different bed, and more like the great central deposit of magnesian lime- 
stone of Yorkshire than the thin beds previously alluded to. 
December 2Mh, 1861. — J. P. Joule, LL.D., President, in the chair. Mr. 
Binney stated that many years since he had communicated to the Society a 
description of some markings on the surface of the Kerridge flags. He 
afterwards published, in Vol. X (New Series) of the Memoirs, a Paper on 
similar markings, found in the Upholland flags, near Wigan, and attributed 
then to the burrowing of an animal similar to the common lug-worm of 
our coast, the A reni cola piscatoricm. Similar holes have since been found 
in rocks of various ages, from the Cambrian upwards. 
The position of the Kerridge flags is, probably, one of the best ascer- 
tained in whole coal-field. It is in the lower division above the millstone 
grit. In the lower coal-field there are two main beds of flagstones : the first, 
or lower, the Eochdale series, under the "rough rock ;" and the upper, or 
Upholland or Kerridge series, above the same rock, the chief workable beds 
of the lower coal-field of Eochdale and other districts, often termed the 
" mountain mines," lying midway between these two flag-deposits. This 
scries of coal is now, and has been for many years, wrought under the 
Kerridge, flags so as prove beyond doubt the position of the latter. Some 
discussions have lately taken place at Macclesfield as to whether the Ker- 
ridge beds were Permian or Carboniferous. No one who ever saw Per- 
mian beds, could ever for one moment suppose Kerridge flags to belong to 
those strata. It is possible that Permian beds may exist in the low dis- 
trict lying between Kerridge and Macclesfield, as they have been met with 
at Hug Bridge on the south, and Norbury Brook on the north, but up to 
this time they have not been proved to be there. 
Considerable interest has been excited by the discovery of what were 
supposed to be the foot-marks of some animals on the surface of the flags. 
He had been induced to make two journeys to Kerridge for the purpose 
of examining them ; but although plenty of worm-holes and ripple-marks 
are to be found on the surface of the Kerridge flags, as yet he had seen no 
tracks of animals upon them. 
