179 



THE EAST TEES DISTRICT (No 5). 



This includes the western portion of Cleveland. A large 

 proportion of its watershed on the east and south reaches into 

 the Middle Zone, but, unlike the Esk district, it does not include 

 any considerable tract of heatherland within its limits, and the 

 greater part of its surface is under one hundred yards above the 

 sea level. The main stream of Tees forms the boundary of the 

 district on the north-west, and a branch of moderate size, which 

 is called the Leven, runs through it from east to west. 



The higher hills along the line of watershed are all capped by 

 the Sandstone of the Lower Oolite, the maximum thickness of 

 which, in this tract, is under three hundred feet. Below it, oc- 

 cupying the steep slope of the moorlands, and spreading out for 

 a considerable breadth round their base, stretch the Liassic beds, 

 with a maximum thickness of 850 feet; and west of the line where 

 the Lias ceases there is fully one-half of the district which 

 belongs to the great Central Valley. 



The southern fork of the Leven rises on the edge of the Middle 

 Zone in front of Burton Head (14S9 feet), the loftiest of the East 

 Yorkshire i)eaks. From the top of this hill there is a very fine 

 and extensive view of the dales of the Esk and the Derwent and 

 the moorlands which surround them, over the low-lying culti- 

 vated Cleveland country on the north, of Kildale Moor and 

 the wooded basaltic ridge and the peak of Roseberry Topping 

 rising behind it, and, further to the west, of the Tees estuary 

 and the long winding line of the Durham coast as far as Hartle- 

 pool and Sunderland and the mouth of the Tyne. From this 

 culminating peak a line of high moorland, with an abrupt west- 

 ward slope, runs in a northern direction towards another branch 

 of the same stream. From Burton Head another line of high 

 moorland runs also due west, the highest peaks being immedia- 

 tely over the edge of Cleveland, and the Cleveland streams, the 



Oct. t88B. 



