190 ME. Gt. W. LAMPLUGH ON THE SPEETON SERIES [May 1896, 



ness and insufficiently exposed for study. In its still more 

 attenuated form, as the pebbly basement-layer of the Red Chalk, 

 it was revealed a few years ago in the railway-cutting of the 

 Market Weighton and Driffield branch east of Goodmanham, being 

 here of very coarse texture, with fragments of phosphatic stone and 

 «oarsely-gritty oolitic iron-ore, up to 3 or 4 inches in diameter. 

 In this vicinity the unconformability at the base of the Upper 

 •Cretaceous rocks reaches its extreme stage, the underlying strata 

 being shaly limestone of Lower Lias age ; and in going farther 

 south we find that the higher members of the Jurassic series emerge 

 again in succession. 



In the extensive cuttings near Drewton, 4 miles north of the 

 Humber, on the Hull and Barnsley railway, the base of the Red 

 <Chalk was at one time excellently exposed, and is still partially 

 visible. These sections while still fresh were examined by 

 Messrs. W. Keeping and C. S. Middlemiss, who record the following 

 details r : — 



Feet. Inches. 



Nodular red chalk 1 6 



Pale nodular chalk 1 3 



Clayey red chalk 6 



Grey nodular chalk 1 



Red chalk 3 



Yellow-green clay 9 



Unctuous red clay 1 6 



resting on a ' dark, almost black clay, slightly shaly .... probably 

 the Kimeridge Clay, but characteristic fossils were not obtained.' 



It has been suspected that the uppermost portion of the dark 

 <;lays beneath the above may represent some portion of the Speeton 

 Series, 2 and the clayey character of the base of the Red Chalk 

 seems to favour the supposition. But a careful search has failed to 

 reveal any evidence of the presence of the Speeton fauna, the first 

 fossils met with below the Red Chalk being, as Messrs. Keeping 

 and Middlemiss pointed out, undoubtedly Jurassic forms, including 

 Belemnites abbreviatus and B. Owenii. On general considerations, 

 however, it seems just possible that some of the unfossiliferous clay 

 immediately below the Red Chalk may represent the sparingly 

 fossiliferous marls with Belemnites minimus (A) which have been 

 shown to occupy this horizon at Speeton and Knapton, though, as 

 ■one of the cuttings still exhibits traces of a pebbly band at the base 

 of the Red Chalk, it is more likely that the Speeton Series is entirely 

 .absent at this point. 



Nearer the Humber, in a small pit in the dale north of Ellough- 

 ton, the Red Chalk is seen to contain numerous small pebbles, and 

 probably has a similar pebbly base, the underlying deposit again 

 being dark clay, supposed to be Kimeridge Clay. 



1 ' On some New Railway Sections and other Rock-Exposures in the District 

 of Cave, Yorkshire,' Geol. Mag. 1883, p. 218. 



2 A. Harker, ' The Oolites of the Cave District,' The Naturalist (Leeds), 1885, 

 p. 231. 



