ItOl DESCRIPTION OF THE STRATA. 



■scarcely two miles from the north front of Silphoue moor, one of the 

 oolite hills. Here the limestone is seen in the south bank of a little 

 stream, nmning into the principal beck that waters this dale, a little 

 above Dry Heads. A bed of coarse shale lies immediately over the 

 limestone, and above that are some thick beds of sandstone, perhaps 

 'Corresponding with those of the steep cliffs on the south side of 

 Cloughton wyke. The crow-stone beds are found at a greater eleva- 

 tion, chiefly in a higher part of the principal dale. In the east bank 

 of that dale, we find the same series of sandstone, shale, and lime- 

 stone, immediately below the spot occupied by those rows of circular 

 cavities at the Dry Heads, which mark out the site of an ancient 

 British town.* 



The blue limestone has not been observed in Newton Dale. If 

 found there at all, it must be among the very lowest beds. Much 

 calcareous matter, however, exists in some of the higher beds of sand- 

 stone, towards the upper extremity of that valley; for a copious 

 spring, issuing not far from the top of the west bank, at a point 

 about two miles north-west from Saltergate, deposits on the bank, in 

 its descent to the beck, immense quantities of calcareous incrustations 

 and stalactites, tinged with a mixture of oxide of iron. 



The limestone beds have been discovered, three or four miles to 

 the north of that spot, in the channel of Brockhole beck, which runs 

 into the vale of Godeland, about half a mile below Brockhole beck 

 bridge. There can be no doubt, that they are continued through the 

 heights to the east and north of that place, as they appear on the 

 other side, at Maybecks, on the Sneaton estate: nay, they run, per* 

 haps with some interruptions, to the banks of the Esk, at the north- 

 ern extremity of Sneaton lordship ; for they crop out in two woody 

 rd\ ines, in the valley on the north side of Sneaton, In one of these 



* See History of Whitby and tiie Vicinity, II. p. 671. 



