locality, viz.-on Oxton Heath in 1859 or 1860; and have observed that, in somewhat diminished quantity, it still grows on the spot. There is, however, another danger threatening its continued existence, in the extending cultivation of the neighbouring land; and it is to be feared that this latest. known Wirral habitat will soon become, like the one upon Bidston Marsh, a thing of the past.-H. E. Smith.

List of Alge new to the District.

CLADOPHORA PELLUCIDA. One specimen procured in a sheltered rock pool on Hilbre island.

C. FLAVESCENS. Bromborough pool and fresh water ponds; a common species.

C. RUDOLPHIANA. Hilbre; a parasite on other algæ.

RHIZOCLONIUM GASPARGI. Very common all round the coast. HYPNEA PURPURESCENS. Hilbre.

PHYLLOPHORA MEMBRANEFOLIA. Plentiful in a quiet rock pool on Hilbre.

RIVULARIA PLICATA.

Plentiful all round the coast.

OCELLATORIA NIGRO-VIVIDIS. South shore, Rock Ferry and Eastham.

O. LITTOREA. South shore, New Brighton and Hilbre. SPHOOZYGA CARMICHAELII. Muddy ditch near Bromborough

pool.

ZYGNEMA NITIDA. Ponds at Old Swan; probably common. CRUORIA PELLITA. South shore, Hilbre and New Brighton. CERAMIUM ACANTHONOTUM.---Hilbre.

CONFERVA JAURGANA. Wallasey pool and the Life boat, New Brighton.

C. SUTORIA. Hilbre.

C. IMPLEXA. South shore.

CALOTHEIA SCOPOLORUM.

LYNGBYA FERRUGINEA.

South shore.

Hilbre.

Bromborough pool, Hilbre and

DESMONEMA DILLWYNII.-Near the wooden bridge, Seacombe. SCHIZONEMA DILLWYNII.-New Brighton.

F. P. Marratt. (Vide "Scrap Book," 3 s., 63-4-9.)

Plants introduced in Ballast or by Seed.

RANUNCULUS PENSYLVANICUS. Ballast at Birkenhead docks, 1863.-H. S. Fisher and T. Gibson, Sen.

LEPIDIUM RUDERALE. Ibid.

Ibid.

SAPONARIA VACCARIA. Among seeds at Crosby, 1864, T. Gibson, Sen.; Greenbank farm, 1865, H. Gibbons, Jun.; among ballast at Claughton, 1864, Mrs. F. Boult and H. S. Fisher.

TRIFOLIUM INCARNATUM.

F. P. Marratt.

Little Brighton, with seed.

MELILOTUS PARVIFLORA. Ballast at Claughton, 1863, Mrs. F. Boult; Birkenhead, 1864, T. Gibson, Sen., and H.S. Fisher; Parkfield, 1864, Miss C. Grundy.

MELILOTUS ALBA. Among ballast at Birkenhead.-F. M. Webb.

LOTUS JACOBEA. Among corn, Greenbank farm.-H. Gibbons, Jun.

AMMI MAJUS. Ballast at Birkenhead, 1864.-T. Gibson, Sen. MERCURIALIS ANNUA. Ibid.

Ibid.

NOTE. The thorough carrying out of the compiler's intention would have necessitated the occupation of more space than could fairly be claimed in these pages, and consequently the matter relative to the lower orders of animal and vegetable life is eliminated, exception being made in favour of that popular class, the Algæ. Enough, however, has been produced to shew that the study of Natural History, far from being retrograde or even stagnant among us, has taken a fresh and, let us trust, a vigorous start, in the promotion of which the Naturalists' Field Club holds a prominent position.

NOTICE OF A RECENT DISRUPTION OF SOIL

BY RIMROSE BROOK, BOOTLE.

By Mr. Henry Ecroyd Smith.

(READ 8th MARCH, 1866.)

THE public have just learned, through a late report of the engineer to the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board, of the serious giving way in a portion of the Northern river or frontage wall, forming the Western bound of the range of docks upon the Lancashire side of the river. The fact will, no doubt, have proved startling to many, but any intelligent person who has taken pains to enquire into the nature of the Bootle shore will by no means share the general surprise. The irremediable error of filling up the Old Dock and there uprearing, upon a site perhaps the very lowest in the town, one of its most important buildings, may well cause astonishment to strangers, more especially when they learn that a permanent obstacle has thus been formed against the construction of a series of comparatively sheltered inland docks, in a good central position, by following up the bed of the ancient Pool and the course of its main feeder. Turning to the reality, we find nearly six miles of docks, mostly in single file-a source of acknowledged weakness and the occasion of an incalculable cost of transit of merchandize; whilst the entrances of the more northerly situated ones are so peculiarly exposed to our strongest prevailing winds as to be frequently unavailable. In addition, as indeed might with good reason have been anticipated from utilizing a site so abounding in springs and quicksands, an important and strongly built wall, erected vertically within a very few years, is now found to overhang its base dangerously, whilst huge iron stanchions, inserted upon the first warning of this tendency, prove to have all been snapped in twain, utterly powerless to arrest it -all resulting from the failing substrata alone.

This outer northern river-wall has been proceeded with to a point nearly opposite to that where the Rimrose Brook debouches upon the strand between Bootle and Seaforth. Here a branch railway (see plate DD), for connecting the lines at Edge Hill with the northern docks, has for some little time been in course of construction. To seaward of Derby Road, which it spans at right angles, a considerable number of brickwork piers have been erected for the support of this portion of the line. Whilst delving for their foundations, a peaty soil, of great depth, was cut through, comprising two distinct strata-the intermediate bed being composed of a fibrous blue clay or silt. Of the peat beds, the lower alone was black in colour, firm and solid, and of almost purely arboreal growth; it contains many trees and a few osseous remains, described as "shoulder, knuckle and jaw-bones," probably of deer or the bos longifrons, such being common to the earlier of the arboreal deposits throughout South Lancashire. A large tooth was also found, said to be two inches long and nearly as much broad, but this having been mislaid, cannot be certainly appropriated. The upper bed is much lighter, both in consistency and colour; and the fibre of the few tree stumps occurring here is found to be almost as red as mahogany: it is evidently of much later growth than the black stratum below and may date with the woods of the early English forest of Wirral, which prove to be of infinitely later date than the more recent of the ancient arboreal strata exposed upon the sea-beach of Cheshire, hitherto known under the misapplied name of the Submarine Forest.

Returning to the branch line :-When sinking for the foundations of a field bridge, a few hundred yards from the shore and a little to the right or dockward side of the plan, the peat was struck at a depth of six feet (here being six feet to eight feet in thickness), succeeded by six feet of blue silt and ten feet of sand, when the red sandstone was reached. The presence of sand between deposits of peaty soil, below the