EXCURSIONS. 
2U 
The first part of tlie drive lay tlirougli a rich agricultural 
district, where harvesting operations were in full swing, but later 
the open moorland, covered with heather and bracken, was 
reached. 
The moorland is intersected by numerous deep valleys, 
with extremely steep sides and in many instances well wooded, 
iorming a pleasing contrast to the open moorland above. 
The Hole of Horcum is a cirque-like depression some 400 
ieet in depth, which is separated from the Saltersgate Valley 
by a very narrow ridge of rock. 
The hollow is excavated in the Oxford Clay, the upper part 
of the slope being formed by the Lower Calcareous Grit. Many 
springs issue from the sides of the valley along the line of junction 
of the two rocks, and the erosion caused by these wearing away 
the softer rock, and the consequent falling down of the hard rock 
above, is probably responsible for the very unusual form of 
the valley. 
Crossing the watershed, a sharp topped ridge, not 50 yards 
wide, and which carries the main road from Pickering to Whitby, 
a fine vievv^ of the Saltersgate Valley and of Xewton Da^e was 
obtained. 
It seems probable that the Saltersgate stream formed the 
head waters of a river which, in pre-glacial times, flowed nortli- 
wards into the Esk, along the line of the present Xewton Dale. 
To-day, the stream, on falling into Xewton Dale, turns sharply 
to the southward, and flows into the Derwent drainage. 
The direction of flow of these waters was reversed during 
the Glacial Period, the watershed having been cut throuph by 
the overflow from a glacier-dammed lake in the north. 
In the neighbourhood of Saltersgate the bracken was already 
brown owing to the early frost. On the 1st September the district 
was visited by a sharp frost, and it is reported that on the night 
of the 1st a water tap in the village of Goathland was frozen. 
A small excavation in a sandy bed of the Oxford Clay Series 
was examined near Saltersgate, and a few indistinct plant re- 
mains were found. 
Xear the junction ot the tributary valley with Xewton Dale, 
the stream forms a picturesque waterfall at the point wliere it 
