8 SPEETON CLAY. 



most northern extremity of that bed in England, viz., in the neighbourhood of the little 

 Yorkshire village of Speeton, I send you a few scanty notes. On my first visit to 

 Speeton, some years since, I imagined, as I subsequently described in the second volume 

 of the 'Geologist Magazine,' and in the 'Proceedings of the Geologists' Association' for 

 L859, that the Red Chalk in Yorkshire consists of a couple of bands of a highly coloured 

 marl, of about thirty feet in thickness from top to bottom, and that its fossils are of such 

 forms as to imply a close relationship with Gault species. This opinion I derived from seeing 

 the section in a gulley to the east of the village ; but subsequent investigations made upon 

 the shore under the cliff, at a mile or more from the ravine, showed me that my former ob- 

 servations were slightly incorrect, and that the Red Chalk, in that part of Yorkshire at least, 

 contains two more additional coloured bands, and that its total thickness from top to bottom 

 is not less than 100 feet, and that its upper portion belongs to the Lower Chalk series. 



" The highest bed of Red Chalk at Speeton may be seen rising from the beach at a 

 very gentle inclination, at about a mile and a half to the south-east of the gulley. This 

 bed, which is of varying thickness throughout its course, may be estimated as being on 

 an average about five feet thick ; it is of a pale pink colour, very hard, and presents a 

 strongly marked appearance from the white chalk, above and below, with which it 

 is in contact. The fossils found in it are Rhy?icJtonella Mantclliana, Gryphaa vesicu- 

 laris, Biscoidea cylindrica , Holaster subglobosus, Spines of Cidaris, Spines of Biadema 

 small vertebrae and teeth, together with a considerable number of Terebratulince graciles. 

 Above this bed, in the white chalk, are found Holaster subglobosus and Ammonites 

 peramplus. The pink band just mentioned is followed by a greenish-yellow chalk, about 

 forty feet thick, almost destitute of organic remains, except fragments of Inocerami, and 

 marked by numerous thin layers of marl, not unlike those met with in the Lower Chalk of 

 Sussex. The next bed in descending order is one of a light pink colour, about three feet in 

 thickness, likewise destitute of fossils, with the exception of fragments of Inocerami. This 

 is followed by another stratum of greenish-yellow chalk, about nine feet thick, containing 

 small Gryphaa, and Terebratula semiglobosa, and Peltasles, but, like the two preceding 

 beds, generally unfossiliferous. The greenish-yellow chalk is succeeded by five feet of 

 white and red chalk, in thin bands, very deficient in organic remains, and this rests 

 upon a pale-red band, about seven feet thick. In the upper part of this last seven feet 

 of red material are many Vermicidaria; umbonata, and in its lower portion many 

 small Terebratula and Inocerami. About ten feet of greenish-white chalk, somewhat 

 hard, is the next bed, in which few fossils are to be noted except a Terebratula and a 

 bone or two of a Star-fish. In all these strata enumerated there is a marked absence of 

 Belemnites, but in the succeeding and last bed, one of a bright-red colour, and more than 

 thirty feet thick, they become exceedingly abundant. This red band is the one from which 

 most of the Red Chalk fossils from Speeton are derived ; it is exceedingly fossiliferous. In 

 its uppermost portion very large Terebratula; may be obtained, and generally many of an 

 ordinary size; at about twenty feet below its commencement, Belemnites, Pentacrini, 



