88 
Report on the Farming of the 
the high wokls, yet in the lower wolds it is also found occurring', 
but only in a limited extent. The average breadth of this latter 
district has been said to be G miles. The direction of the valleys 
is the same here as in the other parts of it, viz. east and west ; 
but the ridges are seldom prolonged so as to become flat table- 
land, and therefore, according to Mr. Thorpe's theory, they have 
not afforded a resting-place for the deposition of diluvial sediment 
so much here as elsewhere. 
In parts of the wolds extensive gravel-beds occur; they are 
chiefly found distributed along the line of the valleys of denuda- 
tion. In two of the most remarkable of these valleys, viz. in that 
of the Dale Towns, and in Thixendale, the surface soil consists 
almost entirely of gravel, which is composed chiefly of chalk and 
flint. In the broad valley of the Dale Towns this gravel bed is 
in some parts nearly a mile broad, and being thinly spread forms 
very useful convertible soil, but in the narrow* Thixendale valley 
the accumulation amounts in some parts to 30 feet in thickness ; 
and, being finely comminuted and covered with a very thin coat of 
soil, is rendered incapable of holding tillage : hence, unless 
copious and frequent dressings of manure are applied to crops on 
this soil, the cultivation of it is found to be unremunerating. 
Under the general term Wolds is included a tract of land lying 
at the foot of these hills at their northern border, and extending 
from Speeton Cliffs to Mai ton, a distance of 20 miles by 2. It is 
in reality a portion of the Vale of Pickering, but, being of incon- 
siderable extent, has been classified with the Wolds ; to which, 
however, it has no other affinity than being immediately conti- 
guous; for the soil geologically belongs (as will be seen by the 
map) to the Kimmeridge clay. The surface, however, is so covered 
with diluvial matter, sand, peat, and gravel, that, except upon a 
very limited area, it is entirely irrespective of its geological for- 
mation. 
Drift sands occupy that part which adjoins the hills, and peat 
covers the lower levels, which were heretofore frequently over- 
flowed by the surplus waters of the river Derwent, but which 
now have been protected from these inundations by an embank- 
ment of that river, and a drainage of this district effected under 
the powers of an Act called ' The Muston and Yeddingham 
Drainage Act,' passed in the year 1800. At the north-eastern 
extremity of this tract, viz. from the edge of the Wolds at Hun- 
manby to the sea-coast of Filey Bay, a very tenacious diluvial 
clay is found forming the surface soil ; and at the other extremity 
* By Thixendale must be understood the numerous ramifications of dales 
which begin at Aldrow, and terminate with their talus of debris at East- 
bum Warren. 
