4-32 Notices respecting New Booh. 



and the H umber may join, and the Spurn become an island. At 

 present, however, the isthmus stands firm, and though composed only 

 of a heap of pebbles and sand, and exposed to two strong currents, 

 may, perhaps, be little changed for ages to come. Such is the effi- 

 cacy of long equal slopes and a pebbly sand, in repelling the rage of 

 the sea." 



It is impossible without the sections to give any adequate notion 

 of the curious variations in the diluvium and alluvium described in 

 this part of the work. It is a subject of the greatest interest, and ap- 

 parently few districts are more favourable for the inquiry than Hol- 

 derness. The author gives the following summary of his observations 

 on the subject: p. 68. 



" From the preceding description of the coast of Holderness, it is 

 evident that no formations appear there which can be considered as 

 older than the deluge. Of the diluvial accumulations, by far the most 

 prevalent, that which is the base of the whole cliff, is blue and brown 

 clay, containing dispersed pebbles j above this, a more local deposit 

 of undulated laminated clay; and finally, gravel on the top, or mixed 

 with the pebbly clay. In this formation lie the teeth and tusks of 

 antediluvian elephants, and abundance of water-worn fossil shells, 

 derived from neighbouring and remote districts. Resting on these 

 diluvial beds, we find the deposits of later, more quiet, more con- 

 tracted waters. Lakes, which existed in hollows of the deluge- worn 

 surface, have been slowly filled up by clay marl, shells, and peat, 

 .subsiding from their waters, and either drained by the industry of 

 man, or emptied by the approaches of the sea. The shells which 

 occur in these clay beds, belong to fresh-water species now living ; 

 they lie almost invariably at the bottom of the bed of the lake, and 

 are covered by several feet of clay and peat without shells, a circum- 

 stance which seems to warrant the supposition that the upper layers 

 of sediment and peat were produced in some short period of time, in 

 consequence, perhaps, of great land-floods. 



" In these deposits lie the skeletons of postdiluvian animals ; the 

 great extinct elk, the red deer, the fallow deer, and the ox -, with trees 

 and fruits, which grew in the forests they frequented. In more than 

 twenty examples on the coast south of Bridlington, it may be clearly 

 seen that the lacustrine deposits rest upon the diluvial accumulations j 

 but are not themselves covered by any other deposit. It is a mistake, 

 therefore, to imagine the skeletons of deer, and the peat and trees 

 constituting the ' subterranean forest of Holderness/ to be of the 

 antedilurian sera. The shells, bones, and trees, belong, with a single 

 exception, to species now in existence in this island, the deposits 

 which enclose them are evidently the most recent in the country ', 

 and differ in no important particulars from the peat and marl-bogs of 

 Scotland and Ireland, whose accumulation is not yet ended." 



From this section, also, we extract a notice on the indications of 

 Tertiary Beds in Yorkshire, as the history of these formations, princi- 

 pally from the labours of Messrs. Murchison, Sedgwick and Lyell, 

 has of late become so important a branch of geology. 



" Tertiary beds. One of the most important inquiries that pre- 

 sents 



