Sheppard : The Evolution of Bridlington. 271 



Let us for a while take our minds back to that far-off 

 time, a time impossible to measure by mere years, when the 

 land we now live upon was not existing. When all this part 

 of the world was deep down beneath the waters of a great sea, 

 the extent of which can be defined to-day with fair accuracy. 

 This sea was then as the sea is now, crowded with a profusion 

 of animal and plant life. Fishes innumerable from quite 

 small ones to large sharks, fed upon the other organisms in 

 the water, and upon each other. Cuttle-fishes with their 

 many tentacles, and their ink bags for darkening the waters 

 when pursued by enemies, abounded. Shells innumerable — bi- 

 valves and univalves, were living too ; and frequently reached 

 far greater proportions than any shells living in the British seas 

 to-day. The sea floor was covered with sponges, and other 

 lower organisms. And the water itself from top to bottom 

 was crowded with minute specks of life, so small that a power- 

 ful microscope is necessary to make out their structure ; just 

 as the seas are crowded with similar organisms to-day. They 

 are called foraminifera. Yet it is to these, the smallest and 

 humblest of them all, that we owe the very foundations of the 

 town of Bridlington. As these died, their calcareous skel- 

 etons, or shells, slowly found their way to the bottom of the 

 water, and accumulated in a soft, chalky ooze, just such an ooze 

 was found on the bottom of our present oceans by the re- 

 searches of the officers of the " Challenger " expedition. 

 Possibly it took very many years, quite likely a century, for 

 a layer of even an inch in depth to accumulate. Yet slowly 

 and surely the deposits grew in thickness, as century after cen- 

 tury passed away. And to add to this formation, though only 

 to a slight degree, the remains of the fishes, the squids, the shells, 

 and the sponges were left on the ocean bed, to be gradually 

 entombed by the constantly falling ooze. All this took place 

 before man trod this earth. Yet almost every chapter, every 

 page of this part of our earth's history, can easily be deciphered. 



Then, for some cause unknown, one of those great changes 

 in the earth's surface, of which we have unquestionable evidence 

 of so many, took place. This great cretaceous sea floor gradu- 

 ally arose, the waters of the ocean were displaced, and slowly 

 the sea-bed not only became dry land, but was lifted up several 

 hundred feet above the water level. Partly by pressure of the 

 great mass, partly by changes wrought by infiltrating water, 

 and for other reasons, the soft ooze was converted into a hard 

 limestone, certainly well over a thousand feet in thickness. 

 Mr. G. W. Lamplugh, by careful surveys, has estimated that 

 in Yorkshire alone, there are to-day over 1,250 feet of solid 

 chalk — in other parts there are greater thicknesses — certainly 

 a considerable amount has been worn away from the surface 

 of Yorkshire since it became dry land. 



1912 Sept. I. 



