541 



and Hepaticae. These cliffs arc farther interesting from being in tlie 

 line of the remarkable fault which extends from Whitby Harbour to 

 the j)lain of Cleveland ; Dr. Young, in the ' Geology of the Yoi'kshire 

 Coast,' has estimated the amount of dislocation to be about 100 feet 

 at the mouth of the Esk, and in some places it is probably more. The 

 fonnation is the inferior oolite, and consists of beds of alum shale* al- 

 ternating with ironstone and sandstone. Goadland beck (or the Mirk 

 Esk) joins the Esk just above Grosmont bridge, and Lythe beck (the 

 sweetest spot in the whole district) runs into Goadland beck about 

 half a mile higher up. These two becks are crossed by the great ba- 

 saltic dyke ; but it scarcely rises above the surface, and does not ap- 

 pear to produce any peculiar plants. 



I devoted two days (the 30th and 31st of December, 1842) to the 

 examination of the banks of the Esk and its tributaries above men- 

 tioned. On the morning of my third and (as it proved) last day's 

 botanizing, I proceeded per railway to Fen End, an extensive peat- 

 moss twelve miles west of Whitby, where Goadland beck has its 

 som"ce;t here I encountered a snow-storm, and although I persevered 

 in examining the rocks on the south side of Newtondale (great oolite) 

 until they, as well as myself, were clad in white, 1 was eventually 

 compelled to desist. I regretted the necessity of this the more, as I 

 had planned out work for other five or six days ; perhaps its comple- 

 tion is a treat yet to come. 



Note. — I have not annexed the localities to those species which 

 occurred in every spot I visited, and which are generally distributed 

 throughout the county. 



Gymnostomum truncatulum. 



curvirostrmn. Newtondale ; barren. I gathered a luoss on wet rocks 



by the Esk, almost intermediate in size and appearance between this species and 

 Anictangium Hornschuchianum. I saw the same plant last summer in Dr. Tay- 

 lor's herbarium, under the MS. name of G. nimbosiim ; he has long known it oil 

 Mount Mangerton, but has never met with fruit Mr. Ibbotson finds it on Pen- 

 nyghent, and Mr. Nowell in Todmorden, but always barren. In a dried state 

 the leaves are remarkably brittle, so that on opening a package of it, I always 

 find numbers of them broken off and strewed about. 



Telraphis pellucida. Lythe beck. 



Bronmiana. Newtondale ; with old fruit. 



* The alum-works near Whitby have been celebrated for centuries, and at Gros- 

 mont great quantities of iron ore are got up and sent to Newcastle to be smelted at the 

 founderies. 



f Another stream rises in this bog, which, altliongh it eventually reaches the same 

 sea, runs in an opposite direction. 



