46 THE CHALK WOLDS. 



condition. The upper portion of the blue clay which is believed to 

 underlie the whole vale of Pickering, shews itself beneath the chalk 

 wolds at Speeton and Knapton, and at each place produces fossils much 

 resembling those of the " gault" of Kent and Sussex. The lower blue 

 clay appears along the north side of the vale of Pickering about Kirby- 

 Moorside and Helmsley, as well as at Settrington and North Grimston, 

 near Malton, and at Elloughton, near Cave ; and at several of these 

 points it yields the ostrea deltoidea, which is one of the most charac- 

 teristic shells of the Kimmeridge clay. 



THE CHALK WOLDS. 



THE wolds of Yorkshire form one of the most remarkable fea- 

 tures in this county. High and bare of trees, yet not dreary nor 

 sterile, they are furrowed as all other chalk-hills, by smooth, winding, 

 ramified vallies, without any channel for a stream. Where several 

 of these vallies meet, they produce a very pleasing combination of 

 salient and retiring slopes, which resemble, on a grand scale, the petty 

 concavities and projections in the actual channel of a river. No doubt 

 these vallies were excavated by water, but not by the water of rains, or 

 springs, or rivulets. Some greater flood, in more ancient times, has 

 performed the work, and left the traces of its extent in the pebbles which 

 it has deposited along its course. 



From the Humber at Hessle, the high wolds range in a north-western 

 direction to Riplingham Clump and Hunsley Beacon, five hundred and 

 thirty-one feet ; and, passing above Market-Weightoh, reach their 

 greatest elevation hear Garraby Beacon, eight hundred and five feet 

 above the sea. Hence, their edge continues by Wharram and Settring- 

 ton, and, turning to the east, skirts the vale of Pickering, and fronts the 

 sea in a long range of lofty cliffs from Speeton to Flamborough head. 

 From this elevated line the Surface slopes eastward to Cottingham, 

 Beverley, and Driffield, and southward to Burton-Agnes and Bridling- 



