202 DAV1«: RELATIVE AGE OE THE REMAIJiS OF MAJh IN YOEKSHIllE. 
tiller of the soil as hoe and plough ; and the harder bones of animals 
were scraped and carved into the form of pins and other implements 
of personal adornment or use. 
Probably about the same period, or perhaps at an earlier one, the 
caves which abound in the mountain limestone districts of Craven, 
and the dales of the North Riding, afforded shelter to a primitive 
people, of whom we know little except that they derived a precarious 
existence from the chase ; alternating their occupation of the caves 
with the cave variety of the spotted hyiiena, sometimes one and some- 
times the other being able to assert posession, as evidenced by the 
layers of bones, gnawed and broken by the hyasna, mixed with its 
coprolites, alternating with the flint implements and other traces of 
man's occupation. There is some valuable information also obtained, 
of the presence of man at a remote period, from the occurrence of 
flint flakes and implements beneath the peat on the range of hills 
forming the Penine chain. These have been found on the surface of 
the ground at the base of the peat, often ten or twelve feet in thick- 
ness. On the same horizon are the roots and trunks of great trees, 
which grew and flourished either before the peat gained a footing, or 
during its accumulation. The great trees, which almost universally 
flourished over the highlands, now capable of supporting only heather 
and grass, probably indicate a climate much warmer and milder than 
the one at present existing. The sheltered and steep hill sides of the 
valleys are now almost universally covered with trees which appear 
indigenous, whilst the tops of the hills, formed of the several beds of 
the millstone grit, are devoid of such growth ; and it is difticult to 
imagine great trees growing luxuriantly on the storm-stripped heights 
of these hills. 
Approaching more recent times, and removing our base of obser- 
vation to the south-east extremity of the county, there are a large 
number of filled-up hollows scattered over the low-lying tracts of land 
from which Spurn Point extends. Sections of these hollows have been 
repeatedly exposed on the coast by the action of the waves, and there 
can be no doubt that they extend far inland, but, being filled-up to 
the level of the country and covered by soil, they are not distinguish- 
able. They extend in all directions, without any definite arrangement, 
