Discovery of Fossil Bones in a Marl-Pit ?iear North Cliff". 225 



part of France there is a rock like the muschelkalk, not to be 

 found in the same group in another part of the same country, 

 what right have we to suppose that, in Europe alone, we pos- 

 sess every formation which has been developed on the earth's 

 surface ? 



XXXI. On a Discovery of Fossil Bones in a Marl-Pit near 

 North Cliff. By the Rev. Wm. V. Vernon, F.R.S. F.G.S. 

 Pres. Y.P.S.* . 



T WAS informed on the 30th of July by Mr. Phillips, the 

 -*■ keeper of the Yorkshire Museum, that he had received 

 from a scientific friend f intelligence of a discovery of fossil 

 bones in a marl-pit near North Cliff, accompanied by such a 

 description of the situation in which they were found as ren- 

 dered the subject worthy of the closest investigation. They 

 were stated by the writer, who had examined the spot with 

 great accuracy of observation, to be the bones of elephant, 

 rhinoceros, deer, ox, horse, &c., and to have lain under dilu- 

 vial chalk gravel, at a depth of from 15 to 20 feet, in a marl 

 indented by the gravel in such a manner as to appear to have 

 been deposited before it, and containing both land and fresh- 

 water shells. Helix and Pupa, Lymnaea, Planorbis and Cyclas; 

 the conclusion drawn by him was, that this had been an ante- 

 diluvian bog. 



On the following day I visited the place, accompanied by 

 Mr. Phillips and by Mr. Salmond, whose former researches at 

 Kirkdale gave him an additional interest in such a discovery. 



On the right of the road from Market Weighton to North 

 Cliff, about a mile to the N.W. of the latter village there is 

 A farm-house, marked in the large maps of Yorkshire as Biel 

 beck house. Here we found the bones collected, and recognised 

 the remains of all the animals enumerated above, with the ad- 

 dition of a large species of Felis. An account of them, as am- 

 ple as the time and circumstances permitted, was drawn up 

 by Mr, Salmond, who has allowed me to subjoin it to this pa- 

 per. 1 need here only remark, that as far as they have been 

 identified they are of the usual fossil species. 



The marl-pit is situated near the house on a rabbit-warren, 

 which is part of an extensive sandy plain extending westward 

 to Holme, and southward nearly to Walling fen. Its geolo- 

 gical position is on the eastern boundary of the red marl, 

 where that stratum approaches the low lias hills which skirt 



• Communicated by the Author. 



t Wm. H. Dikes, Esq. K.G.S. Curator of the Hull Lit.nnd Phil. Soc. 



N.S. Vol 6. Ho, 33. Sq>t.lS29. 2G * the 



