21 
ON THE WHITE CHALK OF YOEKSHIEE. BY EEV. E. MAULE 
COLE, M.A., F.G.S. 
The following- notes are supplementary to the papers already 
published on the Red Chalk (1878), and on the origin and for- 
mation of the Wold Dales (1879.) 
The white chalk of Yorkshire differs considerably from the 
chalk of Kent and Sussex. In the first place, it is much harder, 
and in places almost crystalline. Then, the flint-bearing beds are 
the lowest in the Yorkshire series, whereas they are the highest 
in the southern ; the upper beds in Yorkshire, forming- the inner 
edge of the Wolds, have not a trace of flint. The flints too are 
different ; in the north they are light-coloured and can be shattered 
by a blow into a thousand pieces, whilst in the south they are 
black, tough, hard, and compact. 
Numerous flint weapons, knives, arrow-heads, spear-heads, 
scrapers, &c., have been picked up on the surface of the Wolds, or 
extracted from the numerous tumuli, but they are almost invari- 
ably of foreign flint picked up probably on the sea shore, w^ashed 
out of the Boulder Clay, the flint of Yorkshire not being adapted 
for the manufacture of flint weapons. 
A Frenchman, Mons. Barrois has attempted to divide the 
Chalk beds into a series of zones, containing characteristic fossils, 
but enough attention has not yet been paid to the subject, in York- 
shire at least, to prove or disprove the truth of his theor3^ 
It is certain, however, that very large ammonites are only 
found in the lower beds, and marsupites only in the highest, whilst 
on one horizon inocerami are very plentiful, and on another scarcely 
any fossils are found at all. So far this favors his views. 
The chalk itself is very variable. Sometimes it is quite slaty, 
and splits up into thin layers ; sometimes it occurs in massive beds 
without a trace of parting. Wherever a parting occurs there is 
almost always found a thin deposit of fuller's earth, which seems 
