174 LAMPLUGH : NOTES ON THE WHITE CHALK OF YORKSHIRE. 
placed, are revealed in places just above high-water mark on the left 
side of the photograph where the slips have been partially removed 
by the waves.* 
2. Speeton Cliffs. 
It is from a point on the slipped uudercliff just described, about 
250 yards distant from Speeton Gap, looking eastward, that the 
admirable photograph reproduced in Plate 2 has been secured. No 
picture, whatever the medium, can do any justice to the beauty of 
this scene, which to my mind is unsurpassed on any of our shores. 
The severity of the great precipice, rising overhead buttress after 
buttress in majestic perspective, is only part of the charm. It is the 
delicacy of colour always pervading the scene that appeals so strongly 
to the beholder. The flinty chalk of these cliffs takes on under the 
weather a soft clear tint of pearly grey, amid which lie slopes and 
ledges of pallid green where a shadow-loving grassy or mossy growth 
exists. Above are the darker drift slopes, ruddy-brown where naked, 
and of a full green where overgrown. Below there is a sinuous 
beach of chalky pebbles of dazzling whiteness, edged at low-water 
with spreads of russet sand and sombre weedy rocks, and then the 
great shining plain of the shallow grey-blue sea. In the foreground 
there are patches of red chalk and of dark blue clay among the 
slips ; and in the springtime a plentiful sprinkling of primroses. 
Indeed a scene to be remembered with enthusiasm ! 
As for its geological features, which are shown on the key plate, 
these also are full of interest. The character of the slipped undercliff" 
in the foreground has already been described. The Speeton Clay 
occupies the foreshore quite as far as the group of loose rocks at 
half-tide level which are seen in the middle-distance of the picture, 
but exposures of it on this part of the shore are of very rare occurence. 
The Red Chalk is seen in slips all along the base of the under- 
cliff, and this is perhaps the best collecting ground for its fossils. It 
occurs in place, or only slightly displaced, on the shore above half- 
tide level, just beyond where the rocky beach is seen ; and is well 
* Fuller details regarding the Speeton Clay will be found in papers by 
the author, in Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc, vol. xlv., p. 575, and vol. lii., p. 179, 
wherein also the bibliography of the locality is given. 
