426 Reviews — The North Biding of Yorkshire. 



■with effect. In speaking of the topography of the county, it may, 

 perhaps, be noted that even within the recollection of the present 

 reviewer the name Cleveland Hills has received a very wide 

 extension, mainly at the hands of geologists. Strictly speaking the 

 Cleveland Hills are only the northern escarpment of the great 

 Jurassic area, overlooking the plain of the lower Tees, but now by 

 customary usage the name has gradually encroached towards the 

 south, extending first to the line of the Esk, while by some writers 

 it is apparently made to include the whole of the moorland region 

 down to the Yale of Pickering, more properly known as Blackamoor. 

 It is probably now too late to enter an effective protest against this 

 proceeding, which has received the sanction of high scientific 

 authority. 



There are few more remarkable features in the history of this 

 country than the development of the Cleveland district proper. 

 A hundred years ago Middlesbrough was an uninhabited mud-fiat. 

 It is now a town of 120,000 inhabitants and the centre of a world- 

 wide industry. This development is solely due to the occurrence of 

 iron-ore in the Lias. Serious mining began about 1837 at Grosmont, 

 though cargoes had been shipped from the coast platform about 

 Kettleness many years before. The commencement of working at 

 Eston in 1850 was not the first start, as stated by Captain Weston, 

 although it was undoubtedly of the greatest importance. As every 

 one is aware, the Cleveland output of ore is now far greater than 

 that of any other British ironfield, and it is possible that in the 

 immediate future the older workings in the Esk Valley may be 

 restarted. 



The author of this book has been on the whole very successful in 

 bringing out the great importance of geology in the North Biding: 

 a few minor slips occur, but nothing of much significance. Perhaps 

 the worst feature of the book is the coloured geological map ; 

 a geologist may well ask, why is the tint of the "Lower Oolites" 

 made practically indistinguishable from that assigned to the Whin 

 Sill, and still more, why is this latter labelled "granite"? 

 "Without a very careful scrutiny the non-geological reader would 

 certainly gain the impression that the eastern moorlands consist for 

 the most part of granite : it needs a keen eye to detect the difference 

 of tint and stippling. 



Captain Weston has succeeded in his difficult task of giving 

 a brief, clear, and interesting account of a very large subject, 

 preserving a due balance between the different parts, and presenting 

 a most readable account of a region which can yield to none in 

 beauty of scenery and historic interest, and as a happy hunting 

 ground for the geologist, the botanist, and those interested in all the 

 other branches of natural history in the broadest sense of this 

 much-abused term. 



B. H. B. 



