ON AN ANCIENT SEA-BEACH. 329 



bat when they were excavated by the writer's friend, Mr. J. R. Mortimer, 

 they proved to be disconnected and isolated. 



No further investigation was made at this time, but a few months later 

 one of this Committee, Mr. C. Reid, who was carrying out the work of 

 the Geological Survey in Holderness, had the beds pointed ont to him. 

 Recognising the importance of the section, he had a trench cut into 

 the cliff to show the sequence of the deposits, and published an account 

 of them in 18S5 in his Survey Memoir on ' Holderness' (pp. 47 to 49), 

 this being, so far as we know, the earliest printed description. 



A short reference was also made to the beds in the Sheet Memoir on 

 Bridlington Bay, by J. R. Dakyns and C. Fox-Strangways, p. 1, published 

 in the same year. 



Mr. Reid having strongly recommended further investigation, the 

 Council of the Yorkshire Geological and Polytechnic Society undertook 

 the work, granting the sum of 101. towards the expenses of an excava- 

 tion which was carried out last summer under the superintendence of 

 Mr. T. Boynton and your reporter. It was then shown that the deposits 

 rested on a floor of solid chalk, and had no Glacial beds below them ; and 

 that the whole of the boulder-clay series preseut in the recent cliff above 

 the chalk rested unconformably on these beds and cut them out. From 

 this excavation a large number of bones and teeth and other remains were 

 obtained, which were deposited in the museum of the Yorkshire Philo- 

 sophical Society at York. A paper on the results of this excavation 

 by Mr. J. W". Davis was read at the last meeting of the Association, and 

 an abstract of this is printed in the last 'Annual Report,' p. 694. 



A detailed account of the beds with a list of the fossils as then deter- 

 mined is contained in the report sent in to the Yorkshire Geological and 

 Polytechnic Society by the writer, which was printed in their ' Pro- 

 ceedings ' for last year (p. 381), and is illustrated by a woodcut section and 

 lithograph sketch 



These are the only references known to your reporter. 

 The Ancient Cliff: its Position and Relation to the present Shore-line. — 

 Flamborough Head has long existed as a feature on the coast line of 

 Yorkshire, for, as Professor Philhps long ago pointed out, its main 

 features were already carved out in Pre- Glacial times. It consists of a mass 

 of hard chalk, everywhere covered with Glacial deposits varying very 

 greatly in thickness. The middle portion of the chalk contains much flint, 

 and is a massive well-knit rock, while the upper and lower parts have no 

 flint, and are softer and more fissile and shaken, so as to yield more 

 readily to the sea ; and to this diflerence in the rock the shape of the 

 headland is largely due, for where the southerly dip brings the Upper 

 Chalk to the beach on the south side of the promontory, the cliff line 

 recedes ; and where, on the other hand, the Lower Chalk rises above the 

 shore on the north side, it also is attacked and suffers ; while where the 

 cliff from top to bottom consists of the massive flinty rock, there are many 

 signs that the denudation goes on very slowly. 



The drift-covering hides up many inequalities of the old rock surface, 

 and makes other.« of its own, so that, were it not for the continuous cliff 

 sections, we should be greatly deceived as to the shape of the ancient land. 

 This is strikingly exemplified in the cliff at Sewerby, on the south 

 side of the Head, about four miles west of the easternmost point, and 

 about one mile east from Bridlington Quay. 



Here, near the Park, the cliff is about 75 feet high, the lower 40 feet, 



