Bones discovered in a cave at Kirkdale , in Yorkshire. 173 
annexed map, Plate XV.) about 25 miles N.N.E. of the city 
of York, between Helmsley and Kirby Moorside, near the 
point at which the east base of the Hambleton hills, looking 
towards Scarborough, subsides into the vale of Pickering, and 
on the S. extremity of the mountainous district known by the 
name of the Eastern and the Cleveland Moorlands. 
The substratum of this valley of Pickering is a mass of 
stratified blue clay, identical with that which at Oxford and 
Weymouth reposes on a similar lime-stone to that of Kirk- 
dale, and containing, subordinately, beds of inflammable 
bituminous shale, like that of Kimeridge, in Dorsetshire. Its 
south boundary is formed by the Howardian hills, and by the 
elevated escarpment of the chalk that terminates the Wolds 
towards Scarborough. Its north frontier is composed of a 
belt of lime-stone, extending eastward 30 miles from the 
Hambleton hills, near Helmsley, to the sea at Scarborough, 
and varying in breadth from 4 to 7 miles ; this lime-stone is 
intersected by a succession of deep and parallel vallies, (here 
called dales) through which the following rivers, from the 
moorlands, pass down southwards to the vale of Pickering, 
viz. the Rye, the Rical, the Hodge Beck, the Dove, the Seven 
Beck, and the Costa ; their united streams fall into the Der- 
went above New Malton, and their only outlet is by a deep 
gorge, extending from near this town down to Kirkham, the 
stoppage of which would at once convert the whole vale of 
Pickering into an immense inland lake ; and before the ex- 
cavation of which, it is probable, that such a lake existed, 
having its north border nearly along the edge of the belt of 
lime-stone just described, and at no great distance from the 
mouth of the cave at Kirkdale. 
