18 67. J JTTDD LI>^COLNSHXBE WOLDS. 237 



ridge along the western side of the Wolds, constitnting some of the 

 highest points in the county. This ridge is the watershed for the 

 greater part of East Lincolnshire, as its continuations are for Js'orfolk 

 and the East Riding of Yorkshire. It is cut through, however, by 

 the stream called the Withern Eau, and by the numerous large 

 rivers which now unite to form the Wash. From this main ridge 

 proceed a number of spurs, running in a north-easterly direction, 

 with transverse valleys between, in which flow a number of streams 

 that eventually empty themselves into the Xorth Sea. These spurs 

 or secondary ridges are divided by longitudinal valleys which are 

 generally diy. The Wolds of Lincolnshire are much more covered 

 with superficial deposits, sometimes of considerable depth, than the 

 downs of the south of England, or even of Xorfolk ; hence the 

 district of the chalk in this county does not present that uniformly 

 bare aad arid appearance so characteristic of it in most parts ; in 

 fact, nearly the whole of it has now been brought under the plough, 

 and with the most satisfactory results. 



Above the hard chalk which constitutes the primaiy ridge of the 

 Lincolnshire Wolds, we have a great mass of chalk-beds, containing 

 layers of nodules and large tabular masses of flint, as also scattered 

 flints of pecuHar forms, which occur in considerable abundance, while 

 Paramoudra are rare. The whole of these beds probably correspond 

 to Woodward's "medial chalk'**; for the pecuhar fossils of the 

 division, called by the same author " Upper Chalk" t, have not been 

 found in this county : and if such beds really exist here, they are 

 probably entirely hidden by the extensive Pleistocene deposits 

 which overlie the chalk in the eastern part of the county, in depths 

 varying from a few feet only to upwards of 200, and which, being 

 themselves covered with beds of peat and warp, constitute the very 

 fertile district known as the Lincolnshire marsh. 



b. The Louth Red Chalk. — Mr. Seeley has describedt a thin bed 

 of red chalk as occurring in the midst of the hard white chalk of the 

 Hunstanton cliff, but running only a very short distance. This bed 

 is of a pale-pink colour, its upper and under surfaces being ill-defined ; 

 and it appears to graduate vertically as well as horizontally into the 

 white chalk which encloses it. Similar appearances, but often on a 

 much larger scale, occur in different portions of the Lower Chalk of 

 Lincolnshire, as I shall now proceed to show ; and I have already 

 suggested that probably part of the Speeton section should be con- 

 sidered a similar instance. 



La the extensive chalk-pits about the town of Louth, as well as in 

 several road-sections in the neighbourhood, is seen a thick and very 

 conspicuous bed of red chalk, which is doubtless the one referred to 

 by Mr. Wiltshire § and Mr. Seeley || as belonging to the Hunstanton 

 series. iJs^either of these gentlemen, however, appears to have had 



* Geology of Norfolk, p. 27, t Ibid. p. 25. 



X " On the Hunstanton Red Eock." Quart. Joum. Geol. See. vol. xx. p. 329. 

 § " On the Eed chalk of England," ' aeologist,' 1859, p. 268. 

 II "On the Eed Limestone of Hunstanton," Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist, 3rd :er. 

 vol. vii. p. 241. 



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