412 A. J. JUKES-BROWNE ON THE HESSLE 
(3) The occurrence of the Hessle Clay only on the seaward side 
of the Chalk Wolds, and its position in relation to them, being 
banked up against their slopes and thrust into their hollows and 
valleys—such a position at once suggesting the idea of its accumula- 
tion along a sinking coast-line. 
(4) The frequency of fragments from the softer beds of the 
Upper Chalk, the change in character and contents beyond the 
southern end of the Chalk hills, and the sandbanks fringing its 
westward continuation. 
All these facts appear to indicate that the present boundary of 
the Hessle Clay corresponds with the coast-line of the period during 
which it was accumulated, that there is a distinct relation between 
the nature of the rocks composing this coast-line and the varying 
character of the clay, and that it was formed by the action of coast- 
ice under the influence of a southward-drifting current. I hold it 
therefore only reasonable to conclude that no glacier or ice-sheet 
had any part in the formation of the clay in question, but that its 
origin is purely littoral and marine. 
[Posrscriet, May 1879.—Recent information obtained while 
surveying the country between Burgh and Alford has disclosed 
important facts which are hardly explicable on any other hypothesis 
than that above mentioned. ‘he Boulder-clays underlie all the 
newer deposits of the bordering marsh, and rest on a gently sloping 
plain of marine denudation, which extends westward to the foot of 
a line of buried chalk-cliffs; these stretch northward from Welton 
to Louth, and probably continue along the eastern edge of the Wolds 
as far as the Humber. The Hessle beds are banked up against 
these cliffs, well-borings proving a depth of from 40 to 50 feet of 
clay at distances of only two or three furlongs from its boundary 
line. Borings at Mablethorpe, on the coast, reach the Chalk at a 
depth of 84 feet; so that, allowing for difference of surface-level, 
the buried scar of Chalk has a north-easterly slope of about 1 in 
530. The south end of the Chalk Wolds is completely smothered 
in Boulder-Clay ; and at Welton the concealed cliff is probably an 
- exact counterpart of that at Hunstanton. | 
§ 4. The Age and Equivalents of the Hessle Beds. 
Hitherto I have found myself in accord with Mr. Searles Wood 
in all points concerning the Hessle beds and their mode of occur- 
rence in Lincolnshire; with regard, however, to the connexion 
which he traces between these beds and certain Postglacial gravels, 
IT am constrained to differ from him; or rather, to speak more cor- 
rectly, I would enter a verdict of ‘‘ not proven” against the correla- 
tion for which he contends. 
This is a matter of some importance, because this correlation hes 
at the very foundation of the grouping which he proposes in his 
classification of the Glacial and Postglacial deposits; and in a recent 
paper he defends this grouping, to which Mr. Geikie had taken excep- 
tion in his ‘ Great Ice Age,’ and discusses the question at some length*. 
* Geclogical Magazine, dec. 2, vol. v. p. 24. 
