54 HOLDERNESS. 



as other rallies do, and the gravel hills which bound it are abrupt on 

 the concave side, and slope gently down on the other. 



In the cliffs against the Humber at Paul, very similar phenomena 

 are observed. The gravel and sand are here remarkably contorted, and 

 intermixed with alternating layers of a sediment much like warp. The 

 shells are of the same kinds as in the pit near Ridgemont, similarly 

 arranged, and equally plentiful. The pebbles and fossils, mixed with 

 them, are also very similar, but the masses are generally very small, and 

 flint is more abundant, a circumstance probably depending on the proxi- 

 mity of the chalk wolds. 



As these are the only examples of recent marine shells mixed with di- 

 luvial detritus which have fallen under my examination, I hardly presume 

 to offer any conjectures as to the peculiar conditions of the waters which 

 heaped them together. Repeated investigations of the tracts over which 

 fragmented rocks were dispersed from their original sites, have convinced 

 me that many local eddies and minor currents interfered with the great 

 streams of the deluge, and often caused an accumulation in one spot, of 

 materials brought in very different directions. Such an explanation may, 

 I imagine, be applied to the case before us ; but until analogous exam- 

 ples shall be adduced, and the history of the crag stratum of Norfolk 

 and Suffolk be more adequately developed, the subject must remain in 

 obscurity. 



ALLUVIUM. The great alterations in the form of land, occasioned at 

 the deluge, will always render a contemplation of its effects very interest- 

 ing ; but the operation of natural causes since that period, also deserves to 

 be maturely considered, for these have materially changed the face of the 

 globe. The lakes, which were left on the retiring of the diluvial currents, 

 appear to have been continually diminished in depth, and contracted in 

 extent, by deposits of vegetable matter, decayed shells, and sediment, 

 brought into them by land-floods. In this manner a surprising number 

 of inland lakes have been extinguished in Holderness, and nothing re- 

 mains to denote their former existence, but the deposits by which they 



