I 



BRIDLINGTON. 69 



the bed of the lake, and are covered by several feet of clay and peat 

 without shells, a circumstance which seems to warrant the supposition 

 that the upper layers of sediment and peat were produced in some short 

 period of time, in consequence, perhaps, of great land-floods. 







In these deposits lie the skeletons of postdiluvian animals ; the great 

 extinct elk, the red deer, the fallow deer, and the ox; with trees and 

 fruits, which grew in the forests they frequented. In more than twenty 

 examples on the coast south of Bridlington, it may be clearly seen that 

 the lacustrine deposits rest upon the diluvial accumulations ; but are not 

 themselves covered by any other deposit. It is a mistake, therefore, to 

 imagine the skeletons of deer, and the peat and trees constituting the 

 " subterranean forest of Holderness," to be of the antediluvian agra. The 

 shells, bones, and trees, belong, with a single exception, to species now 

 in existence in this island, the deposits which enclose them are evidently 

 the most recent in the country ; and differ in no important particulars 

 from the peat and marl-bogs of Scotland and Ireland, whose accumulation 

 is not yet ended. 



TERTIARY BEDS. One of the most important inquiries that presents 

 itself to the geologist, whilst investigating the coast of Yorkshire, relates 

 to the occurrence of any of the tertiary beds above the chalk, and Mr. 

 Smith has stated, on his geological map of Yorkshire, that crag shells 

 occur in the neighbourhood of Pattrington. These I have previously 

 described, and cannot doubt that they belong to the diluvial epoch. 

 Professor Sedgwick, who examined the spot in 1821, describes appear- 

 ances on the north side of the harbour at Eridlington, which he supposed 

 to indicate the presence of some one of the strata above the chalk. I 

 have repeatedly searched, without success, for these beds ; but in July, 

 1828, I found, sixty yards north of the harbour, below the level of half 

 tide, an enormous mass of dark shaly clay, whose laminag seemed dipping 

 to the south. It was several yards in length and breadth, was sur- 

 rounded by brown pebbly clay, and contained a few fossils, amongst 

 which were a peculiar ammonite ; the columnar joints of pentac. briar- 

 ens, and what I believe to be a form of avicula ina?quivalvis. J 



