S SPEETON CLAY. 



most northern extremity of that bed in England, viz., in the neighbourhood of the little 

 Yorkshire village of Speeton, I send you a few scanty notes. On my first visit to 

 Speeton, some years since, I imagined, as I suljsequcntly described in the second volume 

 of the 'Geologist Magazine,' and in the 'Proceedings of the Geologists' Association' for 

 1859, that the Red Chalk in Yorkshire consists of a couple of bands of a highly coloured 

 marl, of about thirty feet in thickness from top to bottom, and that its fossils are of such 

 forms as to imply a close relationship with Gault species. This opmion I derived from seeing 

 the section in a gulley to the east of the village ; but subsequent investigations made upon 

 the shore under the clifT, at a mile or more from the ravine, showed me that my former ob- 

 servations were slightly incorrect, and that the Red Chalk, in that part of Yorkshire at least, 

 contains two more additional coloured bands, and that its total thickness from top to bottom 

 is not less than 100 feet, and that its upper portion belongs to the Lower Chalk series. 



" The highest bed of Red Chalk at Speeton may be seen rising from the beach at a 



very gentle inclination, at about a mile and a half to the south-east of the gulley. This 



bed, which is of varying thickness throughout its course, may be estimated as being on 



an average about five feet thick ; it is of a pale pink colour, very hard, and presents a 



strongly marked appearance from the white chalk, above and below, with which it 



is in contact. The fossils found in it are Bhjnchonella Mantelliana, Gri/ph(ea vesicu- 



laris, Biscoidea cylindrica, Holader subglobosus, Spines of Cidaris, Spines of Dindema 



small vertebrae and teeth, together with a considerable number of Terebratulin^ graciles. 



Above this bed, in the white chalk, are found Holaster subglobosus and Ammonites 



peramplus. The pink band just mentioned is followed by a greenish-yellow chalk, about 



forty feet thick, almost destitute of organic remains, except fragments of Inocerami, and 



marked by numerous thin layers of marl, not unlike those met with in the Lower Chalk of 



Sussex. The next bed in descending order is one of a light pink colour, about three feet in 



thickness, likewise destitute of fossils, with the exception of fragments oi Inocerami. This 



is followed by another stratum of greenish-yellow chalk, about nine feet thick, containing 



small GryphcBce, and Terebratulce semiglobosa, and PeUasles, but, like the two preceding 



beds, generally unfossiliferous. The greenish-yellow chalk is succeeded by five feet of 



white and red chalk, in thin bands, very deficient in organic remains, and this rests 



upon a pale-red band, about seven feet thick. Li the upper part of this last seven feet 



of red material are many Vermicularicp. umbonatce, and in its lower portion many 



small TerebratulcB and Inocerami. About ten feet of greenish-white chalk, somewhat 



hard, is the next bed, in which few fossils are to be noted except a Terebratula and a 



bone or two of a Star-fish. \\\ all these strata enumerated there is a marked absence of 



Belemnites, but in the succeeding and last bed, one of a bright-red colour, and more than 



thirty feet thick, they become exceedingly abundant. This red band -is the one from which 



most of the Red Chalk fossils from Speeton are derived ; it is exceedingly fossiliferous. Ii] 



its uppermost portion very large Terebrafido: may be obtained, and generally inany of an 



ordinary size; at about twenty feet below its commencement, Belemnites, Pentacrim, 



