COLE : PEAT DEPOSIT AT FILEY. 19g 
in their secondary wood. ‘The vessels are similar to those of 
Oak or Willow. The smaller flattened pieces of wood also contain 
vessels, and are also angiospermous. 
From this report it would appear that the peat at Filey was 
formed at a time when glacial conditions were passing away, and the 
climate becoming humid and temperate ; for the urn mosses are the 
first to clothe new soil, and the willow and birch can best withstand 
cold ; the oak and hazel are generally found to follow. One cannot 
fail to be struck with the similarity of the lacustrine peat deposits on 
the Boulder Clay of East Yorkshire to those of Denmark, described 
by Dr. James Geikie (‘ Prehistoric Europe,’ p. 485), from the obser- 
vations of Prof. Steenstrup. 
‘ They (forest bogs) are found in basins of inconsiderable size, 
which, however, are deep in proportion to their width. Some of the 
smaller bogs are not much more than 30 yards or 40 yards across. 
The pot-like depressions, which have been specially examined by 
Steenstrup, occur in the great drift or glacial deposits that cover so 
wide an area in Denmark, and appear to have existed at one time as 
pools and lakelets. ‘This is shown by the appearance at the bottom 
of the bogs of alluvial clay and marl, with the remains of freshwater 
organisms and land plants.’ : 
The lakelets on the cliff tops of Holderness have long since 
dried up: That at Filey, now under discussion (British Association 
Meeting at Leeds, 1890), has been known to contain water within 
living memory. It can do so no more, the side seawards having 
given way by the retrocession of the cliff. It is not unlikely that 
these ancient pools were not entirely dependent on the rainfall on 
their immediate surface, but obtained a portion of their water-_ 
supply from the natural drainage from higher ground to the 
east, now denuded. The lowest part of Holderness is that occupied 
by the river Hull, and, with the exception of Hornsea Beck, 
escaping from Hornsea Mere, all the streams flow from the coast- 
line westwards to the Hull, and not into the sea direct. 
At Filey, the boulder clay cliffs at Carr Naze, over Filey Brigg, 
are higher than the lacustrine deposit under review, and doubtless 
at one time occupied a large portion of Filey Bay itself, extend- 
ing upwards even to the top of the chalk cliffs at Bempton, where 
boulder clay is met with, containing large blocks of Teesdale 
basalt. It was this enormous deposit, now greatly reduced by 
denudation, of boulder clay, which blocked up the exit of the 
Derwent eastwards, converted the Vale of Pickering into a lake, 
and caused the drainage of the moorland to cut a channel through 
the oolitic range at Kirkham into the Vale of York to join the Ouse. 
Jan. 1891. 
