154 
narrow terrace about 30 feet in height. The whole presents the appear- 
ance of being the effect of the conjoint action of the stream and the sea 
— the present cliffs bounding the outer and inner coves having been left 
by the undermining action of currents and waves about the time when 
the adjacent di^ift was deposited. 
Malham Cove. 
The South Craven Fault coincides with the slope or escarpment in 
which Goredale and Malham Cove have been worn back. The valley 
which terminates in Malham Cove strictly so-called is more or less 
covered with the reddish-brown drift already mentioned. Nearly as 
far as the inner termination of the cove many boulders may be seen in 
positions where they could not have fallen, and to which, therefore, 
they must have been carried. Not a few of the boulders are regularly 
lithodomized — the holes (about two-thirds of an inch in average diam- 
eter, and often thi^ee inches in length) running at various angles from 
obliquely upwards to vertically downwards. 
The cove is terminated by a wall of limestone rock in most places 
quite perpendicular, excepting where it overhangs. The average height 
of the vertically-continuous and perpendicular precipice cannot be less 
than 250 feet. The infant Aire rises from beneath the cliff-line on the 
left-hand side ; and there is the appearance, in the shape of a shallow 
guUey, of a stream having once, perhaps repeatedly, flowed over the 
brink of the cliff-line. But the face of the cliff-line runs along so con- 
tinuously as to forbid the idea of a narrow stream, either above or 
below, having formed it by either an eroding or undermining process. 
It looks exactly like the work of the sea insinuating itself into a pre- 
existing deep ravine, and excavating it backwards so as to flatten its 
floor,* and leave a semicircular wall of rock. The various stages in the 
process of converting a ravine into a cliffed cove may be seen on many 
existing sea-coasts. 
_ 
EXPLANATION OF PLATE. 
Fig. 1. Section in a Quarts South of Skipton. — (A) Carboniferous Lime- 
stone ; 1. Greyish -blue clay, with a few boulders ; 2. Yellowish-brown clay, with 
many stones, running into stoneless sand and loam, {£>) ; (B) Nearly stoneless 
layer of loam. 
Fig. 2. Sea-terrace cait'ed out of Millstone-grit between Skipton and Adding- 
ham. — It is traversed by the upper or old road. 
Fig. 3. Sea-terrace, with Limestone Boulders resting on Millstone-grit, S. W. 
corner of Emhsay Moor, near SkijJton. 
* There is, indeed, the appearance of the bottom of the cove having been once 
a shallow basin, the outer barrier of which has been breached so as to allow the 
present stream to escape in the direction of Malham village. 
