38 Notices of Memoirs— Drift Deposits at Kirmington. 
in his ‘‘ Geology of Yorkshire” (pt. i, p. 100), and later by 
Mr. G. W. Lamplugh in the Goroetcan Magazine for 1881 (p. 176). 
As the bed is almost always obscured by slips, so that its relations to 
the drift are open to question, it was decided to examine its position 
by excavations. 
Since the presentation of the last report several excavations have 
been made in the neighbourhood of the exposures seen by Professor 
Phillips and Mr. Lamplugh, and your Committee reports that, though 
the results obtained are corroborative of the accounts given by the 
observers above named, they also include certain new points of interest. 
The largest excavation was made in the ridge between Middle Chiff 
and New Closes Cliff at Speeton, and at this place beds were exposed 
as follows :— 
He 
aa 
= 
(A) Boulder-clay (lower part only excavated) ... se 45 
(B) Fime chalky gravel ... : fe 
(C) 
TDismamceraxen Yellowish sandy silt with ahells 
SHELL-BED. Black silt 
6 
) Black silt with sandy streaks and a little gravel ... 2 
) Fine gravel, chiefly of chalk sea 0 S06 4 
) Speeton Clay (base of Bel. jacuium zone 1% feet, 
and ‘‘ compound nodular band’”’ 6 inches, forming 
the upper portion of the sloping cliff of secondary 
clays 84 feet above beach-level). 
SSOoND OB 
(D 
(E 
(F 
(G 
It will be seen from the above section that the shell-bed is here 
17 feet 8 inches thick, and its base is about 86 feet above the present 
beach. 
The gravel (F) rests on the Bel. jaculum clays, but contains some 
material washed from the lower beds of the Speeton Clay, such as 
fragments of Bel. lateralis, etc. 
The excavation showed that the beds do not rest on a flat surface 
of Speeton Clay, but that their surface dips into the cliff at an angle of 
25 degrees, and that the bedding of the shelly deposit itself also dips 
into the cliff at about the same angle. / 
Shells occur throughout the silty beds, but are most plentiful in 
bed C. When excavating, the shells seen were Curdium edule, Tellina 
balthica, Scrobicularia piperata, and Hydrobia. A quantity of the 
shelly material was collected for washing, on which the Committee 
will report later. 
Search was made for the sbell-bed at the same level both north and 
south of the main excavation. Southwards no trace was observable, 
but northwards the beds were traced fifty yards along the slopes of 
New Closes Cliff. 
At the foot of the cliff, about 500 yards northward of the site of the 
excavations, similar shelly silts were laid bare during favourable 
conditions of the foreshore early this year. In this exposure the beds 
attained a thickness of 4 to 5 feet, and were traceable for at least 
100 yards. The silts rested on Kimeridge Clay, and were overlain 
by glacial drifts, which at this locality are extremely thick. 
At the north end of this section the following particulars were 
noted :— 
