128 TIIK SEA-COAST. 



then two great pillars of chalk called the ' King and Queen' arrest 

 the attention (see the Lithograph). 



The north landing-place is a small bay of a rugged aspect, 

 but useful to the hardy seamen of Flamborough, who here draw 

 up their boats on the pebbles. A remarkable cavern, called 

 ' Robin Lyth's Hole/ can be easily explored on the eastern side. 



West of this landing-place is a larger and more interesting 

 bay, where the chalk is much wasted away into caverns and large 

 fissures under a covering of drift clays, which by the action of 

 the atmosphere are worn into fantastic peaks and ridges. In all 

 these bays the chalk is lower than in other parts, and the drift 

 clays above it are very thick ; in the prominent parts the white 

 rock rises higher in the cliff, and the drift is comparatively thin. 

 We now meet the northern extremity of the dike, by which the 

 Danes, it is supposed, defended their ill-gotten lordship of Flam- 

 borough. But the dike may really be of earlier date perhaps 

 earlier than the Anglian invasion perhaps it is a British work, 

 like many other of the entrenchments on these anciently peopled 

 hills. The Dane's Dike is here about 292 feet above high water ; 

 in the course of a mile further west, the highest point in all the 

 range of the chalk cliffs is reached 436 feet above high water ; 

 and if the explorer of this coast should chance to stand on the 

 mound which marks the height at sunset, he may enjoy, as I did, 

 a most striking prospect over sea and land. Not far from this 

 point the chalk quits the coast and ranges inland by Speeton, and 

 a long range of the wolds. The cliff breaks off abruptly, and 

 from below the flinty lower bands of chalk, the peculiar blue 

 clays of Speeton come out for the gratification of the palaeon- 

 tologist. 



But we must not yet quit Flamborough. Famous in our old 

 history, and full of attractions for the artist, it is even more in- 

 teresting to the naturalist by the crowds of birds which startle 

 the wayfarer as they rush out from all the crevices of the cliffs 

 filled with their eggs, and cover both land and sea with their 

 circling flight. 



