DIMLINGTON. 61 



This deposit has so different an aspect from the usual appearance of 

 diluvium, that it might rather seem the result of some uncommon 

 operations of the sea or violent land-floods ; but we shall find further 

 opportunities of examining this question, when we come to mention 

 similar phenomena near Bridlington. 



From Kilnsea to where the road goes from the shore to Easington, 

 the coast is an extended beach of pebbles and sand, which opposes a low 

 barrier to the union of the sea and the Humber ; but from this point cliffs 

 arise, higher and higher, till they reach Dimlington height, which is the 

 loftiest point in Holderness. The beacon here appears about one hun- 

 dred and forty-six feet above high water, and the whole cliff is composed 

 of clay, with pebbles scattered through it. Here the wasteful action of 

 the sea is very conspicuous : the sand and pebbles being removed from 

 the base of the cliffs by the southward set of the tide, vast masses are 

 undermined, and fall in wild and ruinous heaps ; these, as they gradu- 

 ally reach the base, are washed away, and the process of destruction is 

 repeated. 



From Dimlington height the cliffs descend to Out-Newton, where 

 they are about thirty feet high- In this part we remark a good deal of 

 gravel deposited in layers, chiefly above, but sometimes in the midst of the 

 clay. The most remarkable appearance of this kind is represented in the 

 sketch (B). Here, near the surface, is a mass of sand and small gravel, five 

 feet thick, in irregular layers, resting upon a bed of coarse gravel, four feet 

 thick : below this comes a layer, four feet thick, of sand and small gravel, 

 in highly -inclined layers ; still lower, a repetition of the cparse gravel, 

 five feet thick, and a third series of obliquely-laminated sand, the whole 

 resting upon the blue pebbly clay, the lowest diluvial deposit in Holder- 

 ness. Near this place, (further north,) we may observe a quantity of gravel 

 in irregular layers, poured, as it were, into a cavity in the pebbly clay. 



Between Out-Newton and Holympton, we are surprised by the ap- 

 pearance of a fresh-water deposit of marly clay, on the top of the cliff, 

 about twenty feet above high water. As many of these interesting 



