92 DESCRIPTION OF THE COAST. 



Saltburn, and is every where washed by the sea, except in the space 

 between Whitby and Sandsend where it is depressed by extensive 

 dislocations. In consequence, the cliffs assume a different appearance 

 from those already described, and present different phenomena. Stu- 

 pendously abrupt and separated by a very narrow space from deep water, 

 it is often hazardous, and sometimes impracticable, to examine them from 

 beneath. They vary in altitude, according to the character of the inland 

 country, and the pile of strata in the cliff. The great height of the Peak 

 is owing to the truncation of the high ridge of Stow brow ; and the 

 superior elevation of Boulby is accompanied by an accumulation of the 

 sandstone rocks at the top. There is no example from the Peak to 

 Saltburn, where any sandstone higher than the cap rock appears in the 

 cliff. Some of these strata do, indeed, appear at a short distance inland, 

 as the inferior oolitic limestone near Hawsker bottoms, but they never 

 reach the sea-shore ; and in our future descriptions we shall, therefore, 

 notice only the subdivisions of the lias, and the variations in its sand- 

 stone covering. 



Proceeding northward from Blue Wick, we find the lias rising with 

 extreme regularity to some distance beyond the Peak house, where it 

 attains an elevation of two hundred and seventy feet above high-water. 

 A sunken portion of the precipices here forms an undercljff, and leaves 

 only the upper part of the lias exposed below the conchiferous and plant- 

 producing beds before described. But immediately beyond, the scene 

 changes, a great dislocation has happened, and the lias beds are uplifted 

 on the northern side of it, to such a degree that some conchiferous beds, 

 which are usually four hundred feet deep in the lias, appear considerably 

 higher than the top of that formation on the south. This will be readily 

 understood by referring to the section. 



The uppermost of the beds thus exposed on the north side of this 

 great dislocation, belong to a thick series of sandy and irony conchiferous 

 strata, which divide the lias clay or shale into two principal parts, hence- 

 forward to be termed upper arid lower lias shale. The upper one, as being 

 peculiarly appropriated to the production of alum, is termed the alum 



