192 Correspondence — Mr. Searks V. Wood. 



THE BRIDLINGTON CEAG. 



Sir, — In yonr Number for December, 1881 (p. 538), Mr. Laraplugh, 

 introducing what he had to say about Bridlington and Dimlington 

 by quoting from the first part of my memoir, " On the newer 

 Pliocene period in England," my assertion that the Bridlington 

 shells lived where they occur, adds that this is " very doubtful." 



What I endeavoured in that memoir to show was, that at the time 

 when, at the beginning of the great submergence, the land-ice found 

 its way to the sea, while that was as yet confined to the east side of 

 England, and the Crag shells, Nucula Cobboldice and Tellina obliqua, 

 had not become extinct, the basement clay of Holderness was its 

 moraine, the ice which formed it being so much of that enveloping 

 the wold as issued through the Humber ; that as this ice began 

 to retreat before increasing submergence (to advance afterwards 

 during emergence, while forming the chalky clay, in a 

 direction which, in consequence of the altered inclination of 

 England, was quite different to that of its reti-eat, so that it avoided 

 Holderness), it uncovered this moraine, whereupon the Bridlington 

 and Dimlington mollusca established themselves upon it, becoming 

 imbedded in the thin beds of mud and sand which were then thrown 

 down on it, and which, perhaps, became some of them buried in the 

 moraine by slight alternations in advance or retreat of the contiguous 

 ice as it was (on the whole) retiring ; that afterwards, during the 

 emergence, and when the ice giving rise to the moraine of the 

 chalky clay was pushing in its altered direction, and invading East 

 Anglia and the East Midland Counties, a stream of ice from the 

 North of Yorkshire (reinforced by the land-ice which crossed the 

 Pennine at Stainmore and brought the Shap blocks found in the 

 purple clay of East Yorkshire) came southwards down the east side 

 of Yorkshire, and gave rise by its moraine to the purple clay ; and 

 that in doing so it passed over this early moraine which had been 

 deserted by the ice during the progress of the submergence, breaking 

 up and twisting up into the old moraine the thin beds containing 

 the remains of the mollusca which had established themselves upon 

 it. Not only did it do this, but it carried off part of the older 

 moraine and incorporated this into its own, the lower part of this, in 

 which chalk is plentiful, being largely made up of the older moraine 

 reconstructed, and sheets of the old moraine thus carried oif are at 

 Dimlington and near the site of the Talbot Inn to be seen alternating 

 with sheets of the newer moraine in the lower part of the latter. 



So far from what Mr. Lamplugh had to show invalidating my 

 assertion that the shells lived where they occur, his descriptions 

 appear to me in the fullest way, as far as they go, to confirm not 

 only this assertion, but the whole process which I have traced. 

 February 6, 1882. Seakles V. WoOD. 



Errata in the February Number, 1882. 



p. 94, line 10 from bottom, /or " Upper White Lias," 7-ead " Upper Lias." 

 p. 96, for " Transactions of the Bath Literary and Philosophical Association," read 

 "Proceedings of the Bath Natural History and Antiquarian Field Club." 



