ALLUVIAL COVERING. 27 



that falls on the Wolds, like that which falls on the limestone hills of 

 the vale of Pickering, is speedily absorbed, and collecting in fissures 

 of the rock, is conveyed by these internal channels, as well as by 

 channels on its surface, to the lower parts of the hills, where copious 

 springs burst forth from the openings of such fissures. A large stream 

 of this description has found a vent for itself at Spi'inghead near Hull ; 

 and the copious flow of water at Bridlington Quay may be owing to 

 the bursting forth of a stream from the interior of the chalk, more 

 than to the collection of water on its surface. Pei'haps too, the beds 

 of gravel, lying over the chalk at those springs, might be formed, or 

 greatly increased, by the agency of such subterraneous streartis ; as 

 the gravel there consis'ts chiefly of fragments of chalk and flint, which 

 these streams might carry down, from the beds through which they 

 force their passage. 



The Gipsies, which rise near Wold-Newton, about ten miles 

 north-west from Bridlington Quay, are intermitting springs of a very 

 different description from the spring at the latter place. They never 

 flow but after great rains ; and appear to lie occasioned by the Super- 

 abundant watei*s of a subterraneous stream of the kind now described. 

 That stream for the most part finds its way under ground; but when 

 its waters are so swoln, that they cannot get vent by their secret 

 channel, they are forced to rise to the surface by such crevices as 

 they can find: and as the bursting out of this new opening, together 

 with the accumulation of mud, sand, and gravel, occasioned by the 

 excess of the waters, may partially choak up the usual passage, the 

 springs at the surface may thus be made to flow longer, and more 

 copiously, than might otherwise be expected.* These springs, though 

 they always rise near the same spot, are not confined to two or three 



* Our esteemed fiiend Thomas Hiuderwell, Esq. considers the Gipsies as most proliably 

 the re-appearaiice of a stream of water running eastward, which is absorbed a few miles west of 

 Weld-Newton. Hist, of Scarborough, 3ud. Edit. p. 280. 



