Sheppard : The Making of East Yorkshire. 1 1 1 



a marble, which, placed in a kettle of water, gradually grows, 

 as succeeding- layers of lime are deposited upon it. 



In the limy matrix of the particular rock now being noticed 

 are innumerable fragments of the small Coral [Cricopora 

 straminea), remains of Ammonites, and various bivalves and 

 univalves, and other shells characteristic of the Oolitic series, 

 also occur in fair profusion. 



A little above this bed are some sandstone rocks, which con- 

 tain hardly any lime whatever, and were evidently deposited under 

 altogether different conditions. In them are layers of vegetable 

 matter, which, in the famous cliffs at Gristhorpe, have yielded 

 such a wealth of plant remains. These, after the manner of 

 the coal measures found in the older rocks, indicate a totally 

 different state of things from any we have yet considered. On 

 examining the plant-remains closely they are found to consist 

 of huge Ferns and Cycads such as now occur in far-off" countries. 

 They are of a type not so highly developed as that constituting 

 the flora of the country we live in to-day. None of the hig-her 

 flowering plants grew during the time the Gristhorpe bed was 

 being formed. On the other hand, however, that plant bed has 

 entombed in it the remains of vegetation of a higher form than 

 that found in the coal measures. This is as one would naturally 

 expect, and is an illustration that the older rocks contain more 

 primitive forms of animal and plant life ; whilst, as we ascend in 

 the series composing the earth's crust, we find more highly 

 developed organisms inhabited the globe. Sir Archibald Geikie 

 has truly said : ' It is undoubtedly a great triumph of Geological 

 science to have demonstrated that the present animals and 

 plants of the globe were not the first inhabitants of the globe, 

 but that they have appeared as descendants of a vast ancestry. 

 The latest comers in a majestic procession, we ourselves stand 

 heirs of all the ages of the past, and moving forward into the 

 future, wherein progress towards something higher must still 

 be for us, as it has been for all creation, the guiding law.' 



The Gristhorpe beds were evidently formed near the mouth 

 of a huge estuary, but where precisely the river or rivers that 

 formed it existed, and where the area of the sea in which it 

 flowed, we cannot say. It would be interesting to picture the 

 nature of the luxuriant vegetation flourishing at Gristhorpe in 

 this far-off time. Gigantic ' Horse-tails,' towering much above 

 the height of man and as thick as one's arm, grew in profusion, 

 but the most remarkable plant was the Maiden Hair Tree 

 {Ginko bioloba), which now has a natural home in Japan. 



190s April I. 



