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



liad either no boulders to drop, or which had dropped the larger 

 part before it reached the spot where the blue clay is deposited. 



The ' Crag ' shells lying on the blue clay speak of a sea deep 

 enough to be removed from the access of ice forces. 



The presence of the ' sand ' speaks of the proximity of a creek, or 

 sea-beach, or bay unassailable by ice forces (compare Speeton shell- 

 bed referred to subsequently). 



The ' snuff '-coloured clay above the Crag, with its laminations 

 and remarkable tenacity, speaks of a glacier very powerful as a 

 comminuting agent, and of a transporting force which had left all 

 large particles of every kind behind it, and of gravity acting with- 

 out interference. 



Then the ' Purple ' clay represents a further variety of ice action, 

 which observers experienced in ice forces as exhibited in Arctic Seas 

 will alone be able to realize. But, as above suggested, I should refer 

 it to a tidal churning, a repeated freezing and thawing, and to shore- 

 ice just beginning to attack the debris of a retreating glacier, and in 

 doing so disturbing the bottom on which that debris lay, and thus 

 tearing up the Crag shells here and there, and even possibly in 

 places depositing them in a heap above the ' snuff '-coloured clay. 



That the shore-line has been very gradually and extensively 

 elevated we see from the cliffs, and the Crag must clearly have 

 been raised several fathoms to reach its present horizon on the shore- 

 line, and this also supports the views expressed above. 



Over the ' Purple ' clay, and here and there in the ' Purple ' clay, 

 come the ' gravels,' roughly stratified in places, but representing a 

 restless force which was perpetually changing the direction in which 

 it acted, and continually interfering with gravitation. These gravels 

 seem to suggest shore ice predominating, and having the coast-line 

 to itself, because, while the entire absence of all shells from these 

 gravels is very striking, the presence of minute fragments of coal 

 clustering together precisely as now seen on an ordinary sand beach, 

 is equally noticeable. Particles of coal cling together when washed 

 up by the sea on a shore-line with a pertinacity which has always 

 struck me as most remarkable, and you see numerous beds of such 

 fragments in these gravels, denoting a ' A^ehicle of flotation,' so to 

 speak. You do find coal in the ' Purple ' clay, but it is in large 

 pieces, so that in these gravels I see water action of some kind 

 combined with a force inimical to life. 



The whole line of action would thus represent a gradual elevation 

 of the land and a retreat of a glacier. 



Closely connected with this subject is the interesting bed of recent 

 fossils found by Messrs. Bean and Phillips in the Speeton Cliffs, 100 

 feet above the shore-line.^ I have examined this bed, which is 

 almost entirely concealed (masked) by a layer of ' Purple ' clay that 

 has dripped down from above and covered the face of the bed an 

 inch thick. On picking this off, a beautiful bed of sand is disclosed 

 about twenty feet deep. I traced the bed to its foundation, and at 

 its basement found, in addition to the shells mentioned by Phillips, 

 1 PMUips, p. 101. 



