Yorkshire Natural History 200 Years Ago. 339 
Ingenious to calcine readily, and thereby make a stong Lime. 
They are all Fragments of one single Joint or more, from three 
to twenty-five ; and from those Joints proceed certain Wires, 
which make them resemble the Equisetum, or Horse-tail ; 
so that some skilful Naturalists make no Difficidty to admit 
them to be Rock-Plants. The Product of this Riding as to 
Corn, or Nourishing Cattle, is not much different from some 
Parts of the West- Riding, save that there are not so great 
Quantities of either ; and Sheep are the most plentiful of all 
Cattle ; which not being rich enough to fat, they are sold 
lean into other Counties, where there are Marshes to fat 
them, being of a large Size, and such as are usually spent at 
London. The Soil in and about the Woolds abounds with 
Chalk, Flints, Pyrites, &c. And their subterraneous Treasure 
is much increased by the Mines of Coal and Free-stone in 
divers places of this Riding, as Ilkley. Rudston, &c. which is 
all we observe concerning the Nature of the Soil in this Riding. 
3. Waters, with which though this Riding is plentifully 
supplied, yet not with so many Rivers as the other two, but 
those it hath are of the first Magnitude, viz. the Humber. 
Derwent, Hull and Foulnesse, which three last empty themselves 
into the first, and so pass into the Sea. We shall begin with the 
1. Humber, or the SEstuary Abus, by which Name it is 
expressed in Ptolemy ; but by the Saxons, with whom we join 
in the Name, it is called Humber, and from it all that Part of 
the Country which lay on the North side of it, was called in 
general, Northumbria or Northumberland. Both Names seem 
to be Derivatives from the British Word Aber, which signifies 
the Mouth of a River, and was perhaps given to this by Way 
of Excellence, because the Ur us or 0 \ise, with all those Streams 
which fall into it, and many other considerable Rivers, dis- 
charge themselves into the Ocean by it. But yet, though the 
Abits and Humber pass generally for one and the same River, 
yet Ptolemy’s abos seems to be a corrupt Greek Name of the 
River Ouse, rather than to have had its Original from the 
British Aber. It is plain however, from this Expression of 
Ptolomey, abou pot, ekbalai, i.e. the Ejections or Emptyings 
of the River Abus, that he meant, that the River had that 
Name before it came to the Outlet. It is without Question the 
largest ^Estuary, and the best stored with Fish, of any in those 
Parts. At every Tide it flows as the Sea does, and at the Ebb 
returns its own Waters, and those borrowed from the Ocean to 
it again, with such a great Force and Noise, as is affrighting to 
Strangers, and not without great Danger to Sailors and Passen- 
gers ; but being well known, is easily avoided. Nekham hath 
some ingenious Verses upon the Nature of this River, and its 
Name, which we think needless to add. 
2. The Derwent, or Derventio, a noble Stream indeed. 
1914 Nov. 1. 
