180 G. W. Lamphigh — The Shell-hed at Speeton. 



Commencing from the high-water side we first crossed over — 



1. Boulder-clay, belonging to the "Lower Purple," which is continued into the clifF. 



2. Bluish Boulder-clay, with many shell fragments, and with streaks of fine blue 



mud containing many crushed shells. Fauna that of the Bridlington glacial 

 shell-bed. 

 This was undoubtedly the " Basement-clay" of Messrs. "Wood and Rome. 



3. Brown Boulder-clay, full of stones ; no shells. (Not yet seen elsewhere on the 



coast, the bottom of the Baseraent-clay being rarely visible.) 



4. Band of fine Chalk-gravel, with a seam of sand. 



5. Thin band of re-arranged Kimmeridge shale, with broken fossils. 



6. Highly contorted Upper Kimmeridge shale. 



Here it is tolerably certain that the sandy beds are represented by 

 the few inches of dai'k muddy sand in the fine chalk rubble (No. 4), 

 for wo have already seen how rapidly they thinned after leaving the 

 edge of the old hollow, probably owing, as before suggested, to the 

 strength of the current in the middle of the valley. I did not see 

 any shells ; but as all those found in the chief exposure were shore 

 species, and this exposure but small, this did not surprise me. 



No. 3 seems to be the remains of an older clay than any before 

 noticed in Yorkshire, but I know of no other case in which the 

 bottom of the " Basement-clay " presents itself for investigation. 

 It may well be the result of a land-glaciation preceding the flow 

 which formed the overlying shelly blue clay, which appears to have 

 come in main from seaward. 



There is thus a curious unconformity in the beds overlying the 

 shell-bed whose preservation is a remarkable instance of the irregu- 

 larity of glacial deniidation. 



Age of the Deposit. — As the so-called " Basement-clay " is now 

 believed, and probably rightly, to be of the age of the Cromer Tills, 

 it follows that the bed of shells at Speeton is older than that deposit. 

 May it not then, on good evidence, be correlated with some part of 

 the marine Pre-Glacial beds of Norfolk ? 



Beds of similar Age in the Neighbourhood. — There is, almost con- 

 tinuously, on the top of the Chalk from its first appearance, north of 

 Bridlington, to Flambro, a band of fine gravel of varying thickness, 

 consisting wholl}' of chalk. This gravel sometimes admits sand- 

 streaks, which, at the bottom of the Danes Dj^ke Valley, a narrow 

 old Pre-Glacial hollow three miles north of Bridlington, and in 

 other places, thicken out into well-bedded sands and sandj"^ silts. 

 These, at Danes Dyke, are seven feet in thickness, and though as yet 

 I have not found any shells or other remains in them, they are 

 probably of about the same age as the Speeton bed. It is rather 

 curious that at Danes Dyke these sands show the same division into 

 dark blue below and yellow above. 



Some years ago the remains of some large elephantine animal 

 were found in the cliff about a mile and a half north of Bridlington, 

 and as far as I can learn they appear to have been obtained from tlie 

 horizon of this bed, but I have not been able to obtain any exact 

 information on this point. 



