G. W. LamphigJi—The Shell-hed at Speeton. 175 



end the glacial deposits are of great thickness, but slope away- 

 inland, and are soon overlaid by the low-lying modern peats and 

 silts ; and it is this drift barrier alone which prevents the Derwent 

 from now flowing directly into the North Sea; as it would seem to 

 to have done in Pre-Glacial times. 



The little village of Speeton is perched on the edge of the chalk- 

 scarp just after it has left the coast; and below it are the sections 

 which have already made the name familiar to geologists. On its 

 right, at the base of the high cliffs, is the well-known outcrop of 

 Red Chalk, nowhere so well seen ; whilst the low cliffs immediately 

 below the village consist, chiefly of that mass of clays and shales 

 whose slipped and intricate sections have been so ably deciphered 

 by Professor Judd,' who has found in them representatives of the 

 Neocomian, Portlandian, and Kimmeridge ages. 



Nor is the interest of these cliffs even now quite exhausted, for, 

 though as yet little noticed, at first overlying but soon overlapping 

 and hid by the Secondary clays, are some of the finest and most 

 complete drift sections of a coast famous for its drift sections ; and, 

 at the base of the drift, is a bed of sand with shells; to which I 

 would now draw attention. 



Description of the bed. — The first, and, so far as I am aware, the 

 only previous notice of this bed, is contained in the 3rd edition of 

 Prof Phillips's " Geology of Yorkshire, Part I.," where he gives the 

 following brief account of it (p. 100), which will serve to describe 

 its position : — "Whilst searching these {i.e. the Neocomian) cliffs in 

 the autumn of 1855, I discovered a considerable bed of shelly sand 

 under or in the lower part of the drift at a considerable height above 

 the shore, and took measures and bearings to recover the spot. The 

 shells then found were all Dimyaria (Cardia, Tellince, Amphidesma 

 Listen, Mactrce and Psammobia), shells of a sandy shore; tliey 

 were often found with valves united. Only living species were 

 found, unless a very large Cardium, much resembling C Farkinsoni 

 of the Crag, were really of that species. This shell-bed, re-examined 

 in 1872 by Mr. J. E. Lee and myself, yielded the same shells, with 

 a portion of Cyprina islandica ^ and a Littorina with colour bands 

 preserved. 



"The situation is nearly over the contorted pebble-beds, at a 

 height of 105 feet from the shore, the drift rising here to 160 feet. 

 The shelly sands are seen to be covered by a clay-drift with chalk 



1 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xxiv. p. 218. 



2 I think it doubtful whether this was really obtained from the shelly sands, but 

 had not rather been washed on to their surface from the overlying- Boulder- clay ; for 

 it is hardly likely that a fragment of so strong a shell as C. islandica should be 

 found, when such comparatively delicate shells as Scrobicularia piperata have been 

 deposited unbroken ; for though these shells are now almost always found so crushed 

 as to make it diflBcult to recognize them, this has been done after they were buried, 

 for the fragments always remain together and are in no wise rolled. Most careful 

 search, also, has failed to reveal to me another particle, whereas worn frag- 

 ments of this shell are rather abundant in the clay above, which is constantly washing 

 down and masking the sand bed. As Prof. Phillips considered the bed of Drift-age, 

 lie would not consider this of much import. 



