406 MR. G. W. LAMPLUGH ON IHE 



which are not at first fossiliferous ; but 450 yards farther north, 

 on the ridge between Middle Cliff and New Closes Cliff, where, 

 after an interval of confusion and overgrowth, there is again a clear 

 section, we find in the same position silt and sand sixteen feet thick, 

 containing numerous shells. The shells, which are chiefly bivalves, 

 are undoubtedly indigenous fossils, and prove the bed to have had a 

 marine, or, more correctly speaking, an estuarine origin (see PI. XIII. 

 fig. 13)*. 



The base of this shell-bed is not well-exposed ; but the thin seam 

 of gravel (A^) which intervenes between it and the Secondary clays 

 appears to be made up of fragments of Belemnites and other fossils 

 washed out of the Neocomian, with chalk pebbles and other local 

 detritus. I have, however, recently obtained a subangular weathered 

 fragment of basalt, 3 inches in diameter, from the exposed face of 

 the sands (A), and though the circumstances were not absolutely 

 convincing because of the presence of much slipped Eoulder-clay, 

 they were strongly in favour of the erratic pebble having been 

 actually embedded in the shell-bed. 



The very limited fauna of this bed (see p. 412) indicates slightly 

 estuarine conditions, such as might obtain when the drainage of the 

 Yale of Pickering flowed eastwards to the sea, as it probably did 

 before the deposition of the drifts. It also indicates that the 

 bed was accumulated either between tide-marks or in very shallow 

 water. There being nothing contradictor}', so far as they go, in the 

 faunas, the character of this bed and its stratigraphical position would 

 amply justify its correlation with the Buried-Cliff beds of Sewerby, 

 were it not for the considerable discrepancy in their levels, for while 

 the Sewerby beach is very little above the present high-water mark, 

 the top of the Speeton sands is fully 90 feet above the beach f. 

 Thus a difference of sea-level of at least 80 feet is indicated, and 

 if we consider the beds to be actually contemporaneous, we must 

 suppose a tilt of the land to that extent within the six miles inter- 

 vening between the two localities. But, for my own part, I should 

 be very unwilling to admit so great a local displacement, since all my 

 studies of the glacial phenomena of the district have tended to show 

 that the relative levels of the surrounding region have not greatlv 

 altered since pre-Glacial times, and that whatever movements of 

 elevation or depression there may have been have affected the 

 whole area equally. Consequently, in spite of the difficulty in 

 explaining the preservation of this incoherent deposit under conditions 

 of elevation, I think that the Speeton sand, being the higher, is 

 probably slightly older than the Buried Cliff-beds, since the Land- 

 wash above the Beach at Sewerby indicates that the movement of the 



* See descriptions and discussions of this bed in Geol. Mag. (1881) p. 174 ; 

 also J. Phillips, ' Geol. of Yorkshire,' 3rd ed. pt. i. p. 101, and Mr. C. Reid's 

 'Holderness' Memoir, p. 69. 



t Jolm Phillips describes them {loc. cit.) as being ' 105 feet from the shore ; ' 

 but the figure given above was that arrived at by the late Prof. Carvill Lewis, 

 who measured the altitude of the bed for me by means of the large aneroid 

 which he carried. 



