345 



NOTES AND COMIVIENTS. 



THE FORMATION OF FILEV. 



A WRITER in a Yorkshire magazine recently favours his readers 

 with a further example of his journaHstic abiUty. Under the 

 head of ' Antiquities of File}',' he first quotes ' Mr. Geikie ' as 

 under : ' There can be no dispute as reg'ards the abundance of 

 upheavals, subsidences, and dislocations which the crust of the 

 earth has underg-one ; but that all our valleys and ravines are 

 not mere cracks would seem to be put beyond dispute by the 

 fact that for one valley which happens to run along- the line of 

 dislocation, there are fifty or a hundred, I dare say, which do 

 not.' Having- read this extract from Geikie, we are told 'The 

 conclusion, therefore, to which an attentive examination of the 

 Yorkshire coast line points us is this, that although the rocks 

 have suffered much from subterranean commotion, it is not to 

 that cause that their present external forms are chiefly to be 

 placed. Our frowning", our awe-inspiring- mountains and hills are 

 there, not because of upheavals from the valle3's, but because 

 their environment in part has been cut away by moving- water, 

 frost, and ice.' The author then pities the man who can pass 

 Filey on a ship during- the nig-ht ' without feeling- stirred in all 

 the powers of a g-rateful heart by the majesty and subdued 

 beauty of such a scene. ' We pity his readers ! 



ANOTHER OPINION OF FILEY. 



We doubt also if the blower of Filey's trumpet will quite 

 agree with the following description, which appears in No. 4 of 

 the Museiini Gazette : ' The sands, as in most half-enclosed 

 bays, are extensive and flat. They are firm, and have no mud. 

 As they have no rocks, there is scarcely any seaweed, and very 

 few pebbles. Shells also are very scarce. Excepting for 

 bathers, riders, bicyclists, and children with spades, it is not 

 possible to imagine sands more unattractive than those of Filey 

 Bay. If you walk towards Flamborough Head you must, if 

 you wish to sit down, take your campstool with you, for there is 

 not a bit of rock or a sand hillock. High tides come up to the 

 base of the cliff, and the latter is clay. It is glacial clay, but it 

 contains scarcely any stones, and consequently yields nothing 

 for the shore. This glacial clay cliflf extends in this direction 

 much further than most would like to walk. Where it ends 

 chalk and strata begin.' 



1906 October i. 



