10,0 HULL SCIENTIFIC AND FIELD NATURALISTS CLUB. 



expanded into the modern city was first built perhaps a 

 thousand years ago. At high water — for the River Hull is 

 tidal — the adjacent land is considerably below the water 

 level, and were it not for very many miles of embankment 

 along the shores of both the Humber and its affluent, as 

 well as by many more miles of big open drains and smaller 

 ones known as dykes, the district would be still correctly 

 described in Chaucer's words, " the merschlie londe called 

 Holderness." Thanks to the drainage operations above 

 mentioned, which have gone on for hundreds of years, 

 Holderness is now one of the driest parts of the British Isles. 

 This is borne out by the fact that it is just on a par with East 

 Anglia in respect of rain-fall, the lowest recorded in the king- 

 dom. Still there are many relics of " the dim and watery 

 woodland "' of former times. Many marshy places still exist 

 untouched by the cultivator's hand. One lake at least, the 

 largest in Yorkshire, remains in Hornsea Mere ; whilst the 

 word "Mar" (the pronunciation of Mere) persists in many 

 place names like Marton and Marfleet. Actual sections of 

 some old Meres now dry and cultivated, with their marly 

 bottoms overlaid with peat, may still be seen in the clay cliffs 

 at Skipsea, Atwick, and Holmpton. The last name in part 

 very often met with, suggests a feature of the ancient landscape. 

 The "holmes" were the mound-like gravel hills that would 

 rise out of the marshes and be the first " terrae firmae " on 

 which the primitive inhabitants would build their farms 

 and hamlets. Even occasional wild bird visitants having 

 preference for aquatic haunts and breeding places, still tell 

 of the former prevalence of more watery conditions. The 

 bittern is a solitary instance. 



Away to the west, engirdling geographical Holderness, is 

 a range of low chalk hills, never more than 850 feet above sea- 

 level, and not averaging 450 feet. These are the Yorkshire 

 Wolds, wind-swept uplands, gently rounded and with no 

 great abruptness, except here and there in the steep sided, 

 V-shaped dales like those of Drewton and Welton, or better 

 those near Thixendale, and the magnificent perpendicular 

 cliffs of Flamborough's famed promontory. 



Still to the west beyond the Wolds are " The Levels," a 

 sandy alluvial tract intersected from north to south by the 

 Derwent, tributary of the Ouse. 



The three areas briefly sketched in the preceding para- 

 graphs have, as geological ground-work, different constitu- 

 tions. Holderness is a large area of glacial drift, consisting 

 of "Boulder Clay" and gravels which are really morainic 



