54 REMINISCENCES OF 



them. In my youthful days, in a casual walk from 

 the stream flowing under the cliff-bridge to the Spa, 

 a space not exceeding a quarter of a mile, I could 

 have collected half a dozen of the ammonites of 

 Whitby and Staithes, brought southwards by the 

 forces that accumulated the clays and gravels of 

 the Drift. 



I well remember one occasion when my father 

 and I, walking between Sands End and Kettle- 

 ness, came to a broad, flat scar, left bare by the 

 retiring tide, rich in fossils. Many of these fossils 

 of the Upper Lias, of which division the scar 

 consisted, were contained in hard spherical con- 

 cretions, and on approaching the Kettleness Alum 

 Works, we found the scar studded with round balls, 

 which were half embedded in blue shale. A large 

 number of these balls contained the well-known 

 ammonites of the Liassic beds, but from others 

 there projected the solid pointed end of a belemnite, 

 known as the guard or rostrum, whilst, on splitting 

 open the attached spherical concretion, we found in 

 it the broad chambered part of the object known as 

 the phragmacone. In the course of little more than 

 an hour, we filled our two baskets, as well as con- 

 verted our handkerchiefs into bags, and before we 

 reached the summit of the Kettleness cliff, on our 

 way to our resting-place for the night, we found 

 that our burdens were quite as much as our strength 

 enabled us to carry. I refer to this expedition to 

 illustrate the abundance with which fossils could be 



