100 DESCRIPTION OF THE COAST. 



In the cliff on the east side occur the following beds : 



a. Hard shale, irony and rugged, with great balls of ironstone. 



b. Soft shale, with a remarkable sulphureous line in it. 



c. Ironstone series ; consisting of layers of ironstone nodules alternating with shale. 



Pectines, terebratulae, belemnites, and wood, are abundant in this group. 



Colborn nab cliff on the west side of the harbour contains strata 

 which in other places on the coast are seen to lie beneath a, b, c, though 

 in consequence of the great dislocation they here front them on a level. 



d. Alternations of shale, and thin, soft, sandy beds. 



e. Alternations, mostly consisting of sandstone. 

 /. Sandstone and shale, with numerous fossils. 



g. The lower alum shale, with layers of ironstone. 



The dislocation at Staithes is the last which 1 shall have occasion to 

 notice. For though the declinations of the strata in the lofty cliffs 

 beyond is variable and subject to flexures, there is no fault or break 

 whatever. Another general fact is, that the deeper shale, which shewed 

 itself at the foot of Colborn nab, is uniformly found in the lowest parts 

 of the cliff, from that point to Saltburn. It rises from Colborn nab 

 towards the precipices of Boulby, and there attains an elevation of about 

 one hundred feet. It encloses nodules of ironstone in rather distant 

 layers, and many fossils, as belemnites, plicatulse, pectines, grypliea\ 

 wood, &c. : from this height it sinks down to almost the level of the sea, 

 at the Lofthouse boiling-houses, and so continues across the bay at Skin- 

 ningrave, but further on it ascends, and in the loftiest point of Huntcliff 

 seems to be one hundred and eighty feet above high-water. It falls 

 ao-ain towards Saltburn, and terminates against the diluvial cliffs there at 

 an altitude of about fifty feet. It appears, then, that nowhere on this 

 part of the coast is the lower shale disclosed in greater thickness than two 

 hundred feet, whereas, in consequence of the great fault at the Peak, 

 three hundred feet are there seen in the cliff. Toward Staithes the low- 

 water scars of this shale are rendered interesting by the singular appear- 

 ance of the sandstone and ironstone masses, which look like mushrooms 



