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YORKSHIRE NATURALISTS AT SOUTH CAVE. 



Characteristic of our English weather are its surprises. One hardly 

 expected such a pleasant one, however, as favoured the end -of -March 

 Easter Meeting of the Yorkshire Naturalists' Union at South Cave. 

 The meteorological conditions fairly took the wind out of the sails of 

 those who, with just cause, are pressing for a fixed Easter holiday to fall 

 later than in the present year. In spite of the early date and the absence 

 of cheap railway facilities, both the Saturday and Monday meetings were 

 well attended,' the Hull societies, as was to be expected in this locality, 

 being chiefly represented. 



Headquarters were at ' The Bear ' Hotel, South Cave, where a few 

 members, having the advantage of the company of the President, Mr. 

 H. B. Booth, stayed for the week-end. The district is undoubtedly the 

 most interesting to be found in proximity to Hull. In geology especially 

 it affords the variety that gives spice. 



Excellent reports of the meetings appeared in The Yorkshire Post, 

 Tise of which has been made in the following general account. 



The members assembled at midday on the Saturday, at North Ferriby, 

 the geologists under the leadership of Mr. W. S. Bisat, and the rest of the 

 naturalists under the direction of Mr. T. Stainforth. For the first stage 

 of the walk all were willing to be geologists, and Mr. Bisat led the party 

 to the foreshore of the Humber, and for a mile or two upstream. Here 

 the moraine of the North Sea ice-sheet has been recognised. Before the 

 Ice Age East Yorkshire presented to the sea a line of chalk cliffs stretching 

 round from Sewerby, near Flamborough Head, through the hills overlook- 

 ing Beverley, and to the Humber at Hessle. Against these cliffs the 

 great glaciers filling the basin of the North Sea abutted and piled up the 

 spacious expanse of debris which now constitutes Holderness. But in 

 the mouth of the Humber there was no such obstacle, and the ice was free 

 to push far up the estuary . The southern end of the moraine which marked 

 the extent of the trespass of this lobe of ice, has long been known on the 

 Lincolnshire shore at South Ferriby. It afforded the Romans an elevated 

 site for their station. For a few hundred yards the Yorkshire bank, and 

 consequently the foreshore, presents a most remarkable museum of hard 

 rocks of every sort and kind — from northern England and southern 

 Scotland — lias with fine ammonites from Whitby, mountain limestone 

 and basalt from Teesdale, and the easily recognised granites of Shap 

 and the Lake District, the lavas and ashes of the old volcanoes of the 

 Cheviots, granites, schists and jaspers from South Scotland, and mixed 

 haphazard with all these British rocks, pebbles of characteristic Nor- 

 wegian origin. 



Leaving the Humber the party struck into a little narrow belt of 

 woodland which zig-zags for half-a-dozen miles from the shore. This 

 woodland is in summer a delightful place for wild plants, and even, 

 early as it was, the visit could not be regarded as altogether without 

 reward. 



About a mile and a half from the shore the party made its way to 

 a spot where new works are being erected to produce Portland cement. 

 Here, well in the Wold country, the Middle Chalk will be excavated. 

 Huge machine excavators, which have seen service in France, are already 

 on the ground. In the big works, which are in course of erection, the 

 material will be reduced to a liquid ' slurry ', and it will then flow 

 along a pipe line to companion works at the Humber side for the com- 

 pletion of the process. Remembering the advantages with which Portland 

 cement is credited over ordinary limestone cement for certain classes of 

 work, it is curious that that advantage is founded upon, not exceptional 

 purity, but the actual reverse. The Yorkshire limestones and chalk 

 are purity itself, and will make a cement with the best, but Portland 

 has a muddy limestone, far less pure, which in actual practice is found to 

 possess a peculiar chemical reaction. 



1921 June 1 



