548 Mr. Winch on the Eastern Part of Yorkshire, 
south of Old Peak. The general inclination of the shale, together 
with the strata reposing upon it, is towards the south-west, and 
their dip at the rate of about 1 in 100. Fig. 1 , Plate 38, repre- 
sents a section of the strata from the Yorkshire Wold to Easington 
height.* On the north side of Whitby harbour they appear to be 
depressed by a downcast dyke about 90 to 100 fathoms. Fig. 2, 3, 
and 4, (Plate 38) are sections on a large scale of particular places. 
The alluvial soil lying upon the rocky beds is in many places 
from 50 to 100 feet thick, and contains large blocks of granite, 
sienite, porphyry and grauwacke, the wreck of mountains situated 
far to the west. 
Immediately below this superficial covering, a thick stratum of 
sharp-grained sandstone is met with, in which considerable quarries 
have been worked on the banks of the Esk, and enormous blocks 
shipped for London, where it has been used for the interior struc- 
ture of Waterloo bridge, the exterior being built with Cornish granite. 
Alternate beds of bituminous shale, sandstone, and ironstone, 
succeed the sandstone ; and from this repository, numerous frag- 
ments and nodules of argillaceous iron-ore are detached by the 
action of the sea, and lie scattered on the beach at the foot of the 
cliffs. 
From hence the Tyne Iron Company have for some years past 
supplied their furnaces with large quantities of this species of ore. 
The same kind of ironstone is now calcined at some of the alum 
w r orks as a material in the manufacture of Roman cement. 
This thin coal formation covers the alum-shale, except where it 
bassets out, or is exposed to view by deep ravines, chiefly worn by 
the action of the water ; and it dips in different directions accord- 
* For this, besides much other valuable information, I am indebted to the kindness of 
Mr. Bird. 
