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a snake, and they tell how St. Hilda charmed off all the heads of 

 the snakes which were a great nuisance there when she founded 

 the Abhey. The sea at Easby at this date was moderately deep. 

 There was a shore some way to the North West and through a 

 wooded land a large river brought trunks of trees which became 

 water-logged and sank and formed the origin of what is now jet. 

 At a later time, the site of what is now Easby was near to a 

 shore, nay at length was dry land or land that was far from dry. 

 At one period —about the time when the sandstone now forming 

 the cap of Roseberry was being deposited — horsetails thick as 

 a man's arm grew in the neighbouring marshes and are at this 

 moment to be seen still in the upright position in which they 

 grew. Then down went Easby beneath perhaps 2,000 yards 

 perpendicular of rock and a deep ocean on the top of that. An 

 intelligent person seated on the summit of Roseberry on a bright 

 summer's day, and opening his eyes as an intelligent person may 

 be expected to do, cannot well fail to see that he is sitting on a 

 bed of sandstone which shows current bedding and other 

 evidences that it has been laid down in somewhat shallow water, 

 and that the bed is continued round the hill on which Captain 

 Cook's monument stands, and round Greenhow Botton and 

 Hasty Bank, standing out very prominently at the Wainstones ; 

 and it must be evident to his assumed intelligence that the bed 

 must once have been continuous from where he sits right up into 

 Botton and right across to the Wainstones. And if he will 

 reflect, as an intelligent person may be expected to do, he will 

 conclude that the washing out of the material which once filled 

 the Ingleby corner up to the level of the hill tops was a work 

 which must have kept Dame Nature's old scrubbing brush in 

 employ for many a long day, and that there is not a little 

 " history " involved in the operation. But ages intervened before 

 Madarne Nature's old scrubbing brush got a start upon that 

 particular little bit of work. 



Let our intelligent person pay a visit to the Yorkshire Wolds* 

 and he will find thick chalk deposits which were evidently laid 

 down in a deep sea. Where was the shore of that sea ? It is 

 difficult to imagine that it could be anywhere between the Wolds 

 and the Pennines. Therefore it is likely that the chalk, or 

 deposits of that age — an age which alone must have extended 

 through millions of years, for the chalk is largely composed of 

 very minute organisms which lived on the surface of the sea and 

 dropped to the bottom when they died — must once have extended 

 over the Cleveland hills and moors, and that at that date the 

 present site of Easby was thousands of feet below the surface of 

 the sea. 



