58 DESCRIPTION OF THE STRATA. 



the slope below the chalk hills, about half a mile east from the vil- 

 lage: and here the clay is dug out, and employed in making a com- 

 post to improve the soil of the adjacent fields. And truly the soil 

 has need of a mixture of clay, for it is so light, that the wind, when 

 it is violent, blows it away in vast quantities; as the authors found in 

 one of their excursions to their no small annoyance, being here en- 

 veloped for some time in a thick cloud of dust, raised up from the 

 ploughed fields. At Thorpe-Basset, a little further west, it is found 

 i^ the slope above the village, when the ground is opened to the depth 

 of a few feet. It has been met with in sinking wells, and the authors 

 observed it at a pond which had been recently deepened. Advancing 

 further to Settrington, we find the shale on the sides of the road de- 

 scending from the Wolds, near the house of Lady Sykes, and con- 

 tinuing down the bank for a considerable space. It may be found no 

 doubt in many other spots, behind the higher Wolds, though in sev- 

 eral places it appears to be deeply covered with the alluvium. 



In one of the clay pits at Knapton, we see the junction of the 

 shale with the red and grey chalk. The clay, where it joins the 

 chalk, is soft and plastic ; and this also is the case with the lower 

 ])art of the chalk. The two substances are partly blended together; 

 the soft chalk, which occurs here of both colours, approaching to the 

 state of red and grey clay; while the clay that is next the chalk is 

 somewhat impregnated with calcareous matter, and is almost divested 

 of its schistose quality. The same facts are observed in the specimens 

 from the Staxton boring, and at the junction of the chalk and shale 

 in the lower part of the Speeton cliffs. By digging in -the bottom of 

 tlie water-course formerly mentioned, between the chalk and shale at 

 Speeton, it has been found that the coloured chalk is nearly in the 

 state of clay, at the junction, and that both it and the clay are soft 

 and plastic. 



It is obvious, however, from the facts above stated, that in the 

 Speeton cliffs, the chalk and the ahsle are not lying in their original 



