WHITBY.- 



By Henry Ceowther. 



Whitby, the Streonshalh (the town on the strand) of the Saxons, 

 offers many agreeable changes to the inland naturalist, archaeologist, 

 or even ordinary sightseer. Approached by one of the most beautiful 

 dales in Yorkshire — the vale of Pickering — on the one side, and by 

 the sea on the other, one can indulge on the one hand in admiring 

 the precipitous limestone escarpments, the pleasant blendings of moor 

 and cultivable lands, interrupted and enlivened by extensive woods of 

 larch and oak, at the foot of which meanders the Mark Esk ; or can 

 view if sailing, from the south especially, an extension of Yorkshire 

 coast scenery which for interest, particularly zoological, has perhaps 

 no county equal. But it is to the all-round zoologist, a student who is 

 becoming commoner every day — one who, though he may have no great 

 desire to become a specialist, has a craving to witness, alive if possible, 

 types which form often the connecting links in the animal kingdom, 

 of which the sea is the repository of the major portion, — that I com- 

 mend this quiet, romantic, and interesting little seaport. 



Situate where the river Esk joins the sea, with high cliffs rising 

 nearly 200 feet above high water, the principal receptacle of St. 

 Hilda's exorcised and lapidified snakes, composed of the upper alum 

 shale, &c., on the east side, which disappearing through a line of 

 fault, dips under the harbour, and reappearing at the little village of 

 Sandsend, some three miles westward, gives us on the west of the 

 river a sandstone cliff somewhat under 100 feet high, having at its 

 base an excellent expanse of sandy beach. At the base of the high 

 east cliff, which is capped with the Abbey and the Parish Church, is 

 an extensive scar of liassic rock, on the face of which are visible 

 innumerable Ammoniiidoe, Belemnitidoe, Ledoe, &c. The geology of 

 Whitby being proverbial, almost all visitors become students — too 

 often, unfortunately, wantonly practical ones, for, armed with hammer, 

 whatever they see in the form of a fossil on the scar has inflicted upon 

 it such summary chastisement as to render its specific recognition a 

 question of fancy. The ladies are especially guilty, the modus operandi 

 being to hit away at the object so that it will jump out of the matrix, 

 and the result achieved in nine-tenths of the cases is something about 

 which they care so much that they throw it away, and then (to use 

 their own words) " look for something better." 



The scar discloses, when the tide is low, rock pools of varying sizes, 

 miniature sea gardens and marine aquaria, lined with red and green 



