24 
COLE : CHALK OF YOEKSHIRE. 
over the couDtry, ^yi\\ confirm this statement, but it is also proved 
by the presence or absence of flints on the surface of the ploughed 
fields. Chalk readily decays under atmospheric denudation, but 
not so flints. Hence, wherever the subsoil contains flints, they 
rapidly accumulate on the surface, and sometimes have to be picked 
off by hand. 
We have spoken of flints as if they were all alike, but this is 
not the case, there are " flints and flints " according to the French 
proverb, in fact the different kinds of flints are so persistent over 
different areas, that they are useful in classifying and identifying- 
zones of chalk, even without the help of fossils. For instance, in 
the lower beds, just above the Grey Chalk, the flints are nodular. 
This term however does not adequately describe the peculiar shape, 
so we must coin a word "finger-like" meaning thereby that the 
flints are rounded, tapering, resembling in appearance a thumb or 
fingers ; another feature to be noticed is that unlike other flints, 
these are mostly found in a vertical or upright position. Good 
examples may be met with in the railway cutting immediately 
facing Burdale station. 
In the slaty beds of chalk, which succeed next in order, the 
flints, as might perhaps be expected, appear in thin horizontal 
slices here and there. 
Next above these are found tabular flints, i.e. solid compact 
beds of flint, of variable thickness, extending over a large area. 
On the sea coast, at the N. side of Flambro' Head, the setabular 
beds present level, but pitted surfaces, many yards in diameter, 
which have resisted the denudation of the waves, whilst the chalk 
which once covered them has long since been removed. In the 
interior, a fine example, 9 inches thick, has been exposed in a quarry- 
on the top of the hill, between Fimber Station and Sledmere, by 
the roadside. 
In the higher beds of the flint-beaiing chalk, occur large 
angular masses of flint, partaking partly of the tabular, partly of 
