﻿552 George Barroiv — On a Marine Bed in the Yorkshire Oolite. 



IV. — On a New Marine Beb in the Lower Oolites of East 



Yorkshire. 



By Geoege Barrow, F.G.S. ; 



of H. M. Geological Suryey of England and Wales. 



[By permission of the Director-General of the Geol. Surv. of the United Kingdom.] 



ABOUT half-way between Hayburn Wyke and Clougbton Wyke, 

 and five miles North of Scarborough, a scar of hard sandstone, 

 remarkable for its even bedding, may be seen rising with a con- 

 siderable dip from the sea. This sandstone contains along its 

 bedding planes occasional thin layers of a very dense ironstone, 

 from which it has probably received the name of '' Iron Scar," 

 Immediately beneath are about five feet of shales closely resembling 

 those of the Middle Lias, and containing two bands of dogger 

 ironstone. 



A careful search shows that the uppermost of these two bands 

 contains a few small fossils ; while the base of the sandstone con- 

 tains casts of Niicula minima f in great numbers. 



This particular bed of sandstone would scarcely attract much 

 attention, but for the fact of its constant presence in the great mass 

 of false-bedded sandstones which wedge out in both directions in 

 the face of the bold cliffs of this district. It can easily be traced 

 from the above-mentioned locality to Blea Wyke and the great 

 Peak fault, between which points it is seen about 160 feet above 

 the Dogger, or top bed of the miners, and about 130 feet below the 

 Millepore bed. 



It is not seen again in the cliffs till we reach Hawsker, and it 

 first comes to the face of the cliff immediately on the North of Maw 

 Wyke, from which point it continues to High Whitby, and after 

 turning inland for a short distance, once more reappears just North- 

 west of Saltwich Nab. From this point it continues to the mouth 

 of Whitby Harbour, where it is the capping rock of the East Cliff. 



In all this long exposure, though the bed preserves the same 

 lithological appearance, it contains very few fossils, and would have 

 remained unnoticed perhaps, but for the fact of its far better 

 development inland. At Whitby its only remarkable feature is the 

 sudden development of a false-bedded conglomerate in the midst of 

 the sandstone ; a condition which can be well seen on ascending 

 the Old Church Steps on the East Cliff. 



Inland we have to go as far as Goathland on the Whitby and 

 Pickering Eailway, before seeing the typical section of what, in 

 spite of its thinness, we believe to be an important marine bed in 

 the great Estuarine series of East Yorkshire. 



About 500 yards down the stream, Eller Beck (from which we 

 propose to call it the Eller Beck bed), below Goathland, and a 

 little below the picturesque village of Darnholm, is a small Force of 

 about seven feet fall, the Force being caused by a close-grained very 

 hard sandstone, well bedded and flaggy at the base, and passing 

 insensibly into a shale, identical in appearance with the shales of the 

 Ironstone series of the Middle Lias. The following is the section, in 



