518 F. A. Bedwell — On the Bridlington Crag, etc. 



original!}' seen. I obtained a collection of shells and black nodules 

 from the spot, but none of any fresh species. What I considered of 

 most importance was, that I saw the horizontal section of the beds 

 for myself, and observed that the complete bivalved shells, which 

 were numerous, lay horizontally and showed no signs whatever of 

 disturbance, and I concluded then, and still think, that they died 

 and lived very near to where I found them. The beautiful Nucula 

 Cohboldice in particular occurred, with both valves perfect, while, 

 delicate as it is, it had never been assailed by any force so applied 

 as to injure its exquisitely ornamented shell. Th^ Pliolas crispata, 

 which was exceedingly plentiful, was found invariably as a double 

 shell, and indeed I have never seen a specimen yet of a single 

 separated valve of that shell. Astarte horealis too, and Saxicava, 

 were frequently double. 



The order and position of the bed on the North Sands as thus 

 seen by me in December, 1875, exactly corresponds with that above 

 given by Mr. Lamplugh for the southern extension. On the North 

 Shore it lies on the Blue clay, that is, the ' Basement ' clay of Wood 

 and Rome. It lies below the snuff-coloured laminated clay, while the 

 ' Purple ' clay of Wood and Eome lies above the snuff-coloured 

 clay. As seen by me on the North Shore, the Crag sand, which 

 was very marked in its character, lay in mottled streaks in the Blue 

 clay. I traced it over a horizontal area of about 20 by 100 yards. 

 The Blue clay was always quite distinct, and there were no signs 

 of a transitional bed from one to the other. The fossils were mostly 

 met with in the sand, but I found a Cyprina Islandica in the ' Base- 

 ment ' clay itself three to four inches below the exposed surface, 

 and I feel quite satisfied that it lay in a ' natural ' bed and not in a 

 ' derivative ' one. The bed on the North Sands, as described by 

 Mr. Bean, and when seen in vertical section b}' him in 1835 in the 

 exposed cliff side, was " a heterogeneous mass only a few yards long 

 and as many high, composed of sand, clay, marine shells, and pebbles 

 of every description." ^ This description gives the bed a consider- 

 able perpendicular altitude ; but whether that portion of the bed as so 

 seen was the result of local ocean " sweepings " or not we cannot now 

 be certain ; but, from what I was told by a local geological collector, 

 now dead, the late J. Tindall, who saw the bed, I am inclined to think 

 that it was so, for he stated quite positively to me that at the spot 

 seen by Bean there was no glacial clay whatever above the bed of 

 sand in which the fossils were found — this might indicate a creek or 

 recess in the then shore-line into which the accumulation had been 

 drifted. Prof. Sedgwick, too, in 1821, says he might easily have 

 filled a wheelbarrow with specimens, thus again denoting a pile of 

 shells heaped near together. 



The independent observation which I made in December, 1875, 

 was soon brought to an end, as the sand rapidly returned and hid 

 the bed again, and it has not been exposed since. I made no use of 

 the observations thus obtained, because, in the face of Mr. Tindall's 

 information, I was much perplexed as to the true stratigraphical 

 ^ See Bean, quoted by Woodward (^. c). 



