148 
NATURE NOTES. 
three sides ; but if you look at a map of Cheshire, you will see 
that it is scarcely a peninsula in the geographical acceptation 
of the term. 
It would seem, from what klr. Hope says, that in that part 
of Cheshire the fields are, as a rule, small ; but almost every 
field has one of these so-called gravel pits. And, by the way, 
the name gravel pit would itself be very misleading to a 
southerner. No doubt he would understand that dry excava- 
tions from which gravel was obtained were referred to. This 
is not so. In our Cheshire dialect, and indeed mostly in the 
north, we speak of a pond as a “ pit ; ” and the Wirrall gravel 
pits are really ponds full of water. Some are round, some 
square, some oblong, but they are generally shallow at one end, 
and rather deep at the other — often eight or ten feet deep. 
For the most part they are fringed with aquatic plants, 
frequently of a rare character, always beautiful ; and often, 
also, waterlilies, white or yellow, float on their surface. Thus 
they are very attractive to botanists ; and I remember that in 
the old days of the Manchester Field Naturalists’ Society, 
when I was a good many years younger than I am now, and 
when I accompanied almost every excursion, it was always a 
joke against me that if there was a pit in a field, I was sure to 
steer towards it. In fact pits were, and are still, to me irresist- 
ible. The pits, too, very often swarm with small fish, and 
other living creatures, from rotifers upwards, so that it is not 
the botanist alone who finds them so attractive. 
Mr. Hope suggests, and (although I know less about the 
Wirrall district than about most parts of Cheshire) I think he 
is quite right, that “gravel” pits is a misnomer altogether, 
and that they are in reality old marl pits, the clay from which 
has been used on the adjacent land, gravel being conspicuous 
by its absence, as Ivlr. Hope sa5’s, not only in Wirrall, but in 
most parts of Cheshire. The fact of these pits being shallow 
at one end and deep at the other (and I assume that such is the 
case in Wirrall, as in other parts of Cheshire) almost conclusively 
proves them to be marl pits, the marl having been hauled from 
the deeper end up the inclined bottom of the pit. It is, how- 
ever, difficult to say when these pits ceased to be used as marl 
pits. And this brings me to Mr. Hope’s first question : “ When 
was this method of treating the land discontinued, or in other 
words, what is the age of these pits ? ” 
Marl, of which there are several varieties, such as chalk 
marl, clay marl, rock marl, shale marl, &c., is a combination of 
carbonate of lime with clay or with clay and sand. The 
Cheshire marl is mostly friable clay, containing but little, if 
any, lime, }'et it acts very beneficially when applied to soil of a 
totally opposite character. The practice of using marl as a 
fertilising agent has been known almost from time immemorial. 
Plin}f mentions marl as having been found in Britain and in 
Gaul, and says its use was known to the Greeks. There was a 
