34 THE MOORLAND DISTRICT. 



are among the loftiest in Britain ; and where it turns inland from 

 Huntcliff, by Rosebury Topping, Burton Head, Dromanby Bank, 

 and Osmotherly moors, it maintains the same high and precipitous 

 aspect, and looks over the plain of Cleveland and Mowbray, as 

 the ranges of Cleeve and Broadway overlook the vales of Gloucester- 

 shire. This similarity of appearance is owing to analogy of geological 

 structure. The wide vales of Gloucestershire are, like the vale of 

 Cleveland, based on red marl and lias shale ; and the oolitic rocks of 

 Cleeve and Broadway are represented, though with great variations, by 

 the rocks of the corresponding escarpments in Yorkshire. 



Including that portion of the vale of Cleveland which is based on 

 the lias formation, this division contains about five hundred and fifty 

 square miles. On the south, it is bounded by the elevated edge of 

 oolitic rocks, which range nearly in a straight line, from Scarborough 

 castle to Hambleton end. (See the map.) It comprehends the whole 

 drainage of the river Esk, and on the north of that river forms an 

 imperfectly connected range of hills, from near Whitby to llosebury 

 Topping, with detached secondary elevations on the northern coast, at 

 Rockcliff, HuntclifF, and Eston Nab. According to Col. Madge, the 

 heights on this range are as follow : Rosebury Topping, one thousand 

 and twenty-two feet ; Eston Nab, seven hundred and eighty-four feet ; 

 Danby Beacon, nine hundred and sixty -six feet ; Easington Heights, 

 six hundred and eighty -one feet. The Esk flows nearly along the line 

 of a great dislocation, by which the strata on the north of the valley are 

 much depressed. It is on the south of this river that we find the most 

 elevated and extensive moorlands. From the cliff at the High Peak, 

 near Robin Hood's Bay, six hundred feet, a range rises and ex- 

 tends westward by Stow Brow, eight hundred feet, Lilhowe Cross, one 

 thousand feet, Egton moors, and Loose Hoe, fourteen hundred and four 

 feet, to Burton Head, fourteen hundred and eighty-five feet. This is 

 supposed to be the highest point of land in the eastern part of the 

 county, but the ridges are still very lofty which pass by Wainstones, 

 about thirteen hundred feet, and Carlton Bank, round the head of 

 Scugdale, and by Osmotherly moors, to sink beneath the highest point 



