THE MOORLAND DISTRICT. 39 



the lower and middle parts of the cliff from Cloughton Wyke to the 

 High Peak. They appear on all the higher parts of the coast, from 

 Robin Hood's Bay to Huntcliff; and thence, retiring inland, cap all 

 the high Cleveland hills before mentioned. The lowest part of this 

 series of rocks usually contains a considerable portion of shale, and some 

 thin layers of white and yellow sandstone, with fossil plants and irregular 

 seams of bad coal. Occasionally, this part swells out to a great thickness, 

 and encloses two very distinct layers of fossil plants : those which lie 

 nearest to the dogger consist of cycadiform fronds and ferns of different 

 kinds, and are imbedded in white carbonaceous sandstone and shale, or 

 in ironstone. The upper layer consists of only one kind of equisetiform 

 plants, standing vertically, as if in the attitude of growth, in a bed of 

 sandstone, which rests on shale. A considerable thickness of sandstones 

 and shales covers these plants at High Whitby and in Stainton-dale 

 cliffs ; and further south towards Cloughton Wyke, still higher repeti- 

 tions of the same kind enclose a thin seam of coal, which is there worked, 

 as well as at Maybecks and other places on the moors. This coal seam 

 occurs nearly at the top of the sandstone series, which has been thus 

 shewn to enclose two distinct, though irregular, layers of coal, and at 

 least two deposits of fossil plants, but no fossil shells. 



THE CALCAREOUS STRATA, (No. 12,) now to be noticed, which lie in 

 the midst of the carboniferous sandstones, are of small agricultural value, 

 but of great geological importance. For, in conjunction with the dogger 

 series, they afford a very ample suite of organic fossils, fully demon- 

 strating the relation of these two strata to the oolite formation of Lincoln 

 and Bath, with which they are actually connected by intermediate points. 

 This limestone is seen in the extensive low-water scars between Gris- 

 thorpe and Redcliff, at the northern point of Cayton Bay, and along 

 the shore at low-water, from White Nab to near the Spa at Scarborough. 

 From this point it is below the level of the sea, till we approach Clough- 

 ton Wyke ; beyond which it rises along the high cliffs of Haiburn and 

 Stainton-dale, to near the Peak house. Hence it recedes inland, encircles 

 the vallies which descend to Robin Hood's Bay, and passes by Hawsker, 

 to Maybecks on the Sneaton moors. It occurs again in Commondale., 



