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ON THE SUPPOSED RAISED BEACH AT SALTBURNv. 
By G. W. Lamplugh, F.R.S. ' 
(Read November 26th, 1919.) 
The supposed presence of a Raised Beach of Post-Glacial age at 
Saltburn, at 35 feet above high-water mark, has afforded one of the 
minor problems in the geology of the Yorkshire Coast. The ' beach ' 
was first described by Dr. W, Y. Yeitch in the Proceedings of our 
Society for 1883 (N.S. Vol YIIL, pp. 221-6), and was referred to 
shortly afterwards by Mr. 0. Barrow in his memoir, The Geology of 
North Cleveland " {Mem. Geol Surr., 1888, p. 71). Dr. Yeitch describes, 
the ' beach ' as "a band of alluvial sand containing shells and frag- 
ments of shells," of which six kinds are mentioned, all common on the 
present shore {Purpura, Littorina, Trochus, Lachesis minima and 
Cy2m(ea europaea) ; and states that it was exposed in the steep drift- 
slope below Saltburn in operations by the Saltburn Improvement 
Company, the deposit extending 70 or 80 yards from the bridge up 
Saltburn Beck, where it abruptly comes to an end." He also found 
shells at about the same level '' south " [east] of the beck, on the 
seaward slope of Cat Nab, and considered that they -indicated a con- 
tinuation of the beach. Mr. Barrow gives practically the same par- 
ticulars, and endorses the view that the deposit represents a Raised 
Beach, though he notices the abnormal circumstance that a beach of 
this kind should be preserved in a perishing cliff of soft Glacial bed& 
and should be absent from the neighbouring rocky headland of Huntcliff, 
composed of much more durable Liassic strata. 
The main reason why this beach ' has always been questionable 
is that a Post-Glacial submergence of the amount implied would have 
inundated wide tracts of the adjacent lowland south of the Tees ; and, 
unless the submergence were confined in a perplexing way to one small 
area only, the sea farther south would have entered ujyon the land at 
several places and would have extended over a large part of Holderness. 
But nowhere else in the coast-sections of Yorkshire has any indication 
of Post-Glacial submergence been found*; on the other hand, there 
*In our Proceedings for 1883, in juxtaposition with Dr. Yeitch's 
paper, there is a short note (p. 220) by the Rev. J, S. Tute on " Some 
Indications of a Raised Beach at Redcar," recording the occurrence 
of Rissoa ulva, with broken mussel and cockle shells, in sandy clay in 
foundations of houses at Warrenby, where the surface is stated to be 
about 14 feet above high-water mark. On a flat shore like that west 
z 
