ESTUARINE SHELLS IN THE ALLUVIAL 

 HOLLOW OF SAND=LE=MERE NEAR 

 WITHERNSEA IN HOLDERNESS. 



G. W. LAMPLUGH, F.R.S., F.G.S. 



Among the many small alluvial basins, formerly lakelets, now 

 intersected by the Holderness coast, is that of Sand-le-Mere, 

 two miles north of Withernsea. The peaty deposits of this 

 hollow have been frequently noticed in geological descriptions 

 of Holderness. Prof. J. Philhps recorded the occurrence in 

 them of ' the bones of oxen and deer, with antlers of the stag, 

 etc.'* Mr. C. Reid has given a short list of their plant-remains 

 and fresh-water shells, f and Mr. T. Sheppard has mentioned the 

 presence of artifically-cut stakes, the supposed indication of 

 an ancient ' lake-dwelling.' J 



During a day spent recently [October igog] in re-examining 

 the coast-sections of the neighbourhood, I found good exposures 

 of the peat -bed and its associated deposits on the shore opposite 

 the hollow, and noticed what does not appear to have been 

 hitherto seen, that the sequence included beds containing 

 estuarine shells. The point is of interest since it is, I believe, 

 the only case in which evidence has been detected of other 

 than fresh-water or land-swamp conditions in the hollows of 

 this type on the outer coast-line of Holderness. 



The bordering cliff-sections show that the hollow at Sand-le- 

 Mere, like most of its class, is due primarily to an undulation 

 in the uppermost band of boulder-clay, though it has been worn 

 deeper by erosion. At the close of the great glaciation the 

 whole surface of the low country east of the Wolds was evidently 

 studded with water-filled depressions or shallow ' kettle-holes,' 

 through which a sluggish drainage system was estabhshed. 

 This drainage flowed generally inland or westward from the 

 rim of higher moundy ground now partly removed by the sea, 

 and found its way more or less circuitously to the Humber. 

 In the case of Sand-le-Mere, the connection with the Humber 

 is comparatively direct, as there is a tract of low-lying alluvium. 



* ' Illustrations of the Geology of Yorkshire : Pt. I. The Yorkshire 

 Coast.' 3rd ed., 1875, London, p. 74. 



t ' The Geology of Holderness,' etc. Mem. Geol. Survey, 1885. p. 84. 



X ' Traces of an Ancient Lake-dwelling at Sand-le-Mere, near Withern- 

 sea.' ' The Naturalist,' October 1898. p. 301. 



1910 Jan. I. 



