containing Marine Shells at Easington. 309 



on rock against a terrace, which he describes as water-worn, ^ and 

 Lebour states that the deposits on Cleadon Hills is a typical example 

 of a raised beach. ^ I have described both the deposits at Cleadon 

 and Fulwell, and from the evidence obtained regarded them as 

 raised beaches.^ At the latter place the sands and gravels were 

 banked up against a buried terrace and contained at one point 

 a large number of whole specimens of Littoriria littorea. (The buried 

 rock-terrace appeared to be water-worn and to have been cut by 

 the agent that deposited the gravels.) The sands and gravels at 

 Marsden are mapped as raised beaches on the Geological Survey 

 maps of the district.'' Lamplugh, Wright, and some Yorkshire 

 geologists have doubted that these deposits are of direct marine 

 origin, chiefly because no raised beaches occur in Yorkshire, and 

 Dr. Trechmann states he is unable to see the necessity of 

 assuming these gravel-deposits to be of marine origin.'^ The 

 shells collected from these deposits have been referred to as having 

 been obtained from kitchen middens.'' At Kelsea Hill, near Hull, 

 gravels and sands containing numerous marine shells (some of which 

 are similar to those occurring on the Durham coast) can be proved 

 to have been transported inland for some miles by ice from the bed 

 of the North Sea. Since collecting in the Easington deposit I have 

 re-examined the Kelsea Hill deposit, and have been struck by the 

 similarity of the fauna and the mode of preservation of the shells 

 and by the occurrence in both deposits of bored rocks with Saxicava 

 in place, etc. ; but have been impressed by the dissimilarity in their 

 mode of occurrence. 



The horizontally and regularly bedded gravels at Easington 

 seem to have been deposited on the platform on which they lie, 

 and this level shelf would appear to have been cut by wave action 

 when the deposit was formed. This formation has, indeed, all the 

 characters of a true raised beach, but it is possible that these may be 

 deceptive. After my re-examination of the Kelsea Hill deposit 

 I admit this possibility. I am, however, not convinced that the 

 evidence obtained from an examination of the deposit is sufficient 

 to prove that it is not an uplifted sea-beach. 



If it is not of direct marine origin two other methods of formation 

 are possible. It may be material carried by ice from the bed of 

 the North Sea and deposited above sea-level. (There would appear 



1 Geologist, 1860, p. 294. 



^ Geology of Northumberland and Durham, p. 19. 



^ Nat. Hist. Trans. Northumberland, etc., 1900, and Univ. Durham 

 Phil. Soc. Trans., 1907; Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc, vol. Ixi, 1905, and Geog. 

 Journ., July, 1907- 



* Geog. Journ., July, 1907, p. 56. 

 ^ Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc, vol. Ixxi, pt. i, 1915, p. 75. 



® It is peculiar that a kitchen midden occurs on Fulwell Hills about 20 feet 

 above the highest point at which these gravels occur. The suggestion that the 

 shells in these deposits were from a kitchen midden is shown, by the nature of 

 the deposit at Easington and also by the fragments that can be got from 

 almost any exposure, to have been nonsense. 



