PHYSIOGRAPHY OF THE EAST RIDING. 23 



II, The Wolds. — Adjacent to Holderness on the north 

 and west is the second natural division, namely, the Wolds, 

 a range of hills of no great altitude, stretching in a curve 

 from Flamborough Head, the most northerly large exposure 

 of the chalk in England, towards the Humber at Hessle, and 

 in area occup)'ing 400,000 acres. Their culminating point, 

 Wilton Beacon {785 feet), is situated about the middle of 

 the curve near its western edge. The Wolds are flanked, 

 and in a few places overlapped by the glacial accumulations 

 described above, and for the most part belong to a much 

 older geological system, the Cretaceotis. There is no con- 

 clusive evidence as yet that there are any Tertiary strata 

 coming between those of the Pleistocene and the Cretaceous 

 in Yorkshire. Round the western and northern base of the 

 Wolds there are lower parallel ridges, due to the outcrop 

 of rocks belonging to the systems next below the Cretaceous, 

 and by some may be included in the term wolds ; but from 

 their characters being very distinct from the chalk, and 

 more like that of the division next to be described, we 

 prefer suggesting that the Wolds be considered as synony- 

 mous with the ch'alk. This is a limestone rock so well 

 known generally that no particular description is much 

 needed. Its main composition is of carbonate of lime in 

 a more or less friable condition, intermixed with a large . 

 quantity of flints (siliceous) and some of the iron compounds. 

 In south-east Yorkshire the Cretaceous is certainly the most 

 characteristic rock system, and no better display of its 

 various formations and horizons, from the base to the top, 

 can be had in England. In descending order the Upper, 

 Middle, and Lower chalk, including the Red chalk, all have 

 numerous exposures ; and below the last are the Neocomian 

 series, better known as the Speeton clay, so well seen just 

 north of the Flamborough headland, on the coast of the 

 Filey Bay. 



In thickness the Yorkshire chalk is probably little short 

 of a thousand feet (G. W. Lamplugh, F.G.S., of H.M. 

 Geological Survey, estimates it at 1500 feet), but owing to the 

 gentle dip eastward and to faulting, the actual elevation is 

 not so great, reaching, as has already been shown, scarcely 

 800 feet. On this account no part of the East Riding rises 

 higher than the Infer-agrarian, vegetal zone of the late 

 H. C. Watson's " Cybele Britannica," and therefore, the 

 question of plant distribution due to altitude will not need to 

 be taken into account in the present work. At the same 

 time, perhaps the most striking physical feature of the Wolds 



