A04. A. J. JUKES-BROWNE ON THE HESSLE 
forms a strip of land intervening between the fen and the high 
ground (see section, fig. 2), and varying in width from a mile to a 
mile and a half. Its colour and constitution vary considerably : its 
general character is that of a tough sticky clay, reddish or brownish 
in colour, mottled and striped with bluish-grey, and usually con- 
taining a greater or less quantity of small chalk pebbles, so that the 
material is locally known as ‘‘ clay with whites;” but occasionally 
it passes into a reddish sandy loam which is almost free from stones 
of any kind. 
Beds of sand and grayel frequently and perhaps continuously un- 
derlie the clay. They rise to within a few feet of the surface in some 
parts of the area; but towards Keal Coates the ground rises and the 
clay appears to thicken, a well at the farm near the old windmill 
west of the village being sunk through 20 feet of the clay into 
sandy gravel with water. 
The northern boundary of the Hessle beds, skirting the foot of 
the high land, presents a singular feature which much perplexed 
me when first entering on a survey of the ground. I found the 
hills to consist of Neccomian sands overlying a dark blue clay, 
while on the lowermost slopes reddish sand again presented itself 
with such regularity that it gave one the impression of cropping 
out from beneath the blue clay, while the Boulder-clay appeared to 
be banked up against it on thesouth. Ultimately, however, I found 
that the blue clay was Kimmeridge Clay, and that the lower sands 
connected themselves with the Hessle Clay; they form, in fact, a 
long sandbank marking what appears to be the shore edge of that 
clay and resulting from the degradation of the Neocomian Sands 
above. ast of Toynton All Saints there is a mound of such sand 
banked up upon the Kimmeridge Clay as high as the level of its 
junction with the overlying Neocomian sand, while southward and 
eastward this sandbank passes into loam and Boulder-clay. 
Westward the bank forms a kind of terrace at the foot of the 
hills, more elevated than the plain of Boulder-clay beyond : see 
section fig. 2, p. 405, which is drawn along a line running due N. and 
S., from the eminence called Marden Hill, just N. W. of East Keal, 
to the edge of the fen below the Catch-water drain, which receives 
all the drainage from the slopes on this border of the Fenland. 
The village of West Keal stands on the terrace above mentioned ; but 
here there is less sand, the bank being composed of a strong loam, 
laminated in places, but finally passing into a loose stony clay that 
cannot be separated from the mass of the Hessle Clay, though it 
contains some patches which might almost be called gravel. Such 
is the character of the deposit along the main road from West Keal 
to Hagnaby; and it is last seen just before reaching the farmstead 
called Laythorpe, which stands on the Kimmeridge Clay. 
South of this place the country presents an undulating hillocky 
surface with westerly slopes towards Hagnaby beck, which stream 
runs through ground occupied by sands and gravels that are 
apparently of more recent age than the contiguous Hessle Clay. 
Owing to the more obscure nature of the country, however, J ex- 
