74 DESCRIPTION OF THE COAST. 



From the last-mentioned point the chalk cliffs rise rapidly to Danes' 

 dike, which is two hundred and ninety-two feet above high-water, 

 then sink again by the Summer house, to a point which displays the 

 most remarkable contortions of the strata known on this coast. As may 

 be seen in the section, the chalk layers are here bent in sigmoidal 

 flexures, whilst on each side they are perfectly horizontal. On the 

 eastern side this horizontal direction changes to a rising arch, from which 

 on the other side the layers descend in long perpendiculars, to join the 

 depressed arch which is connected with the horizontal layers on the 

 western side. This remarkable confusion of declination occupies the 

 whole height of the cliff, (two hundred and forty feet,) but its horizon- 

 tal length is small. I could not determine what amount of dislocation 

 is occasioned between the horizontal strata which enclose these contor- 

 tions ; nor, indeed, whether any such effect is produced. It is scarcely 

 possible to conceive how such flexures could be produced, except when 

 the strata were soft and yielding ; and it seems reasonable to suppose that 

 they are coeval with the deposition of the chalk. As in many other 

 instances, the diluvial matter lies without any distinction or peculiarity, 

 upon both the regular and the disturbed strata, 



About a mile further is the highest point of the " white cliffs ;" and 

 here, at an elevation of four hundred and thirty-six feet, a beacon I 

 believe once stood on the very brink of the precipice. A considerable 

 part of this surpassing altitude is owing to an unusual thickness of dilu- 

 vium which here covers the chalk. The views from this station are 

 very extensive ; a long line of coast divides the area into two semicircles 

 of land and water : one half the horizon is sea, and the remainder 

 stretches from the heights above Robin Hood's Bay across the moorlands 

 to the oolitic hills, and then pursues the southward sweep of the wolds, 

 till hills and plains are mingled in the distance. We then descend for 

 about a mile to the last of the white cliffs, three hundred and eighty- 

 two feet high. The range of chalk here quits the sea-coast, and proceeds 

 inland by Speeton beacon, four hundred and fifty feet, above Hunmanby, 

 and along the south side of the vale of Pickering, rising higher and 

 higher towards the west, till it attains its extreme height near Garraby 



