UPPER ESTUARINE SERIES. 32X. 



The Brandsby Stone is a hard siliceous limestone, sufficiently fissile to have 

 afforded roofing-slates, for which purpose it was largely used in former years. The 

 beds are worked for road-metal, and are locally known as the Brandsby road- 

 stone. Locally the rock is also known as Pier stone, as the harbour-pier at 

 Scarborough was largely built of it. 



Upper Estuarine Series. 



These beds, known also as the Upper Sandstone and Shale, 

 consist chiefly of shales with thin bands of ironstone and much 

 carbonaceous matter, together with irregular beds of false-bedded 

 sandstone. The sandstones are developed more prominently in 

 the lower portion of the series. The formation (as described by 

 JMr. Hudleston) is remarkable for the quantity of hard siliceous 

 rock, which is sometimes bedded with it, and sometimes occurs 

 in enormous concretions or ' doggers,' These are probably the 

 ' Crow-stones ' of Young and Bird, who state that of this material 

 several of the ancient rude monuments have been made. 



The beds rest on the Grey Limestone Series at Scarborough, and 

 may be well studied in the Spa cliffs, and at White Nab ; under 

 Wheatcroft the thickness is estimated at about 220 feet, and at 

 Gristhorpe Bay 120 feet. The beds contain Anodon, Ostrea, and a 

 few Plant-remains, Cyclopieris, Pecopteris,'' etc. 



Mr. Strangways includes this Upper Estuarine Series of York- 

 shire with the Inferior Oolite, observing that the bed must not 

 be confounded with the Upper Estuarine Series of Rutland, etc. 

 There is, however, no positive evidence for correlating the beds 

 either with the Inferior or Great Oolite. As Mr. Hudleston remarks, 

 we have no palaeontological indications in Yorkshire either of the 

 zone of Ammonites Parkinsoni, or of the Great Oolite ; and the 

 Upper Shale and Sandstone may represent any of the strata between 

 that zone and the Cornbrash. 



Scarbroite (a hydrous silicate of alumina) occurs in crevices of the rocks. Some 

 of the clay -beds are worked near Scarborough for manufacture into tiles and 

 drain-pipes. 



A massive layer of false-bedded sandstone, termed the Moor Grit, is quarried at 

 Cloughton, while at Sneaton it supplies the district with flagstones. It is well 

 seen in the cliffs about Cloughton and Staintondale, forming a conspicuous feature 

 in the hills above Robin Hood's Bay.- Its thickness is 40 feet, at Blue Wyke, 

 where it rests on the Grey Limestone Series. In places it is a hard quartzose grit, 

 but near Stonegate it is a fine-grained siliceous rock. 



' G. Mag. 1882, p. 147 ; P. Geol. Assoc, iii. 318. 



^ C. F. Strangways and G. Barrow, Explan. Quarter-sheet 95 N. W. (Geol. 

 Survey), p. 44 ; 96 N.E. p. 42; 95 S.W. and S.E. p. 9; see also W. C. 

 Williamson, T. G. S. (2), vi. 143. 



