extends to St. Augustine's Church where the Keuper reposes upon it, as shown in the Geological Survey map. The Free Public Library and Museum is situated upon strata which coordinate exactly with the Storeton Hill sandstone.

The three sections across the town would alone be sufficient to authenticate the line I have laid down, but it is confirmed by many artificial openings that have been made at various times and places. Between Walton and Bootle there are two outliers of the lowest Keuper beds, covering the Bunter. They are represented on the Geological Survey map. Southeast of Bootle a new road runs through an artificial cutting in the sandstone. The result of a partial examination of the strata about Waterloo and Crosby, shows that a similar disposition of the Keuper extends considerably to the north of Liverpool.

I have now enumerated all the deposits that can be referred to the formation in this locality, and traced the lines where the lowest or basement-bed crops out upon the surface. The Keuper has been removed by denudation from off all the other strata in the district, so that the space occupied by those rocks, and open for our examination, is rather contracted, though very accessible.

Having now disposed of the boundaries of the Keuper formation, where different to those published by the Geological Survey, it is necessary to review the results afforded by the combined sections in order to find if any particular reason can with safety be assigned for the absence of the Muschelkalk from the lithological nature of the upper Bunter, or the first formed beds of the Keuper in this district. If the line of junction between these two formations be examined, the distinct separation of each is the most remarkable feature. The upper Bunter beds consist of very soft, yellow, variegated and red sandstones, without marl partings, nodules, or pebbles;

they never show ripple marks, are often false bedded, and traversed by numerous ferruginous joints. The base of the Keuper, on the contrary, is always a conglomerate, or coarse sandstone, containing nodules and small fragments of marl, with numerous quartz pebbles, and is always of sufficient hardness to form a good building stone. The upper Bunter on the other hand is only used for the sake of the sand. It never occupies an elevated position, excepting when covered and protected by the hard sandstones of the Keuper. The surface of the formation is uneven and abraded. In Wirral, about 50 feet of the highest beds are yellow; but, on the Lancashire side of the Mersey, they have been denuded towards the south end of the town, though near Kirkdale they seem to be fully represented. In fact, all the observations made tend to show that the base of the Keuper formation rests upon the worn and eroded surface of the Bunter, which has been in the course of undergoing denudation up to the time of the deposition of the overlying formation. This indicates at least a suspension of deposits, or, perhaps, the existence of dry land during the time that the Muschelkalk was accumulating in other regions.

Mr. Hull, in a very interesting paper read before the Geological Society of London, and published in the Quarterly Journal for the present month,* brings forward facts tending to the same conclusion, as the result of his very comprehensive researches over the whole area of the formation in England. He states that a slight unconformity certainly exists between the Bunter and Keuper formations, and that there is a section near Ormskirk,† satisfactorily proving it at that place. The discovery of an unconformity so near Liverpool is, of course, very important, and cannot fail to tend towards the more correct elucidation of the geology of this

February, 1860.

+ Scarth Hill, and section on Railway south-east of Ormskirk.

neighbourhood. In consequence of the peculiar condition of the upper Bunter strata it is very difficult to make exact observations upon the subject; though time and close observation will very likely produce data proving a slight unconformity to exist at Flaybrick, where the extensive excavations offer great advantages to such an investigation.

If the Muschelkalk had thinned out, it is very probable that the junction of the Keuper and Bunter formations in this country would have been so gradual as not to have left a prominent line of separation, but that it would have been impossible to have known exactly where one formation ended and the other commenced. Although some geologists have been inclined to consider the wide-spread conglomerate base of the former as an equivalent to the Muschelkalk, the occurrence in Germany of sandstones with laminated marls and a conglomerate, seems so very like our own Keuper as not to favour any such conclusion, even taking the calareous cornstones into consideration which sometimes occur with the pebble beds at the base of the formation. The most reasonable conclusion to be drawn from a general examination of the lithological character of the rocks appertaining to the Keuper and Bunter formations in this neighbourhood is—that after the Bunter had been deposited an elevation of the land took place, and exposed the newly-formed strata to denudation, as a land surface for a long period, during which the limestones and dolomites of the Muschelkalk, with its beds of gypsum and rock-salt, were deposited in those regions that had not been elevated.

With the dawn of the Keuper a gradual and long continued subsidence commenced. The beds of pebbles were deposited, followed by thick strata of white and yellow sands uncovered by spring tides. Large quantities of coloured marl were drifted over the sands, frequently rolling into nodules, but often forming beds of considerable thickness, or mingling

L

with the sand produced beds of a slate or flag-like character. Upon the soft and yielding beds of clay were imprinted the footmarks of the reptiles that traversed those sandy wastes, perhaps millions of years ago. The surface dried and cracked, and where pools of water had evaporated, became covered with the crystals of chloride of sodium until covered up by the return of sedimentary matter.

Slow and long continued subsidences seem to have often operated through the long-drawn ages of geological periods. The latter part of the carboniferous system is a stupendous example of such a gradual subsidence, when vast and luxurious forests followed each other in succession beneath the waters, and were covered, one after the other, by argillaceous and arenaceous deposits. Such a slow subsidence is characteristic of the Keuper, both in England and on the Continent. Our knowledge of the formation ends with its vast tracts of saline marshes, uncovered at intervals, and extending along the eastern border of what is now called Wales.

ELEVENTH ORDINARY MEETING.
ROYAL INSTITUTION, 5th March, 1860.

The Rev. H. H. HIGGINS, M.A., President, in the Chair.

Mr. HIGGINSON exhibited two semi-circular magnets in form of a ring, and explained the properties as compared with those of the ordinary magnet of horse-shoe form.

Dr. COLLINGWOOD placed upon the table specimens of the nudibranch, Eolis concinna, found upon zoophites growing at the Egremont shore. (See page 32.) He also announced

the discovery of an additional local species, Eolis exigua, found in company with the others; and read a letter from Mr. Alder, confirming the facts, and also identifying the zoophite upon which these little creatures are found so abundantly at this season as the true Laomedea gelatinosa.

Dr. IHNE exhibited a Burmese book, formed from the leaves. of the talipot palm.

The following Papers were then read

ARTEFACTA ANTIQUISSIMA:

GEOLOGY IN ITS RELATION TO PRIMEVAL MAN.

BY HENRY DUCKWORTH, F.R.G.S., F.G.S.

THE discovery of works of human art in caverns and in superficial deposits, associated with remains of animals hitherto supposed to have become extinct before the introduction of man upon the earth, is a subject at present attracting no small amount of attention in the scientific world.

In the following notes I have endeavoured to draw up an analysis of the principal facts relating to this question, and I trust they may prove of service to those who have had no opportunities of collecting the scattered evidence themselves.

It is eleven years since M. Boucher de Perthes, the wellknown archeologist of Abbeville, published the first part of his celebrated "Antiquités Celtiques et Antédiluviennes."*

In this book, amongst other remarkable statements, he related how he had discovered in beds of undisturbed diluvial gravel in the valley of the Somme, flint instruments-evidently worked by the hand of man-associated with remains of the Mammoth (Elephas primigenius,) and other extinct animals. * Paris, 1847, (imprimé en 1847, publié en 1849.)