4 
THE MOORLAND DISTRICT. 
are among the loftiest in Britain ; and where it turns inland from 
Huntcliff, by Rosebury Topping, Burton Head, Dromanby Bank, 
and Osmotherly moors, it maintains the same high and precipitous 
aspect, and looks over the plain of Cleveland and Mowbray, as 
the ranges of Cleeve and Broadway overlook the vales of Gloucester- 
shire. This similarity of appearance is owing to analogy of geological 
structure. The wide vales of Gloucestershire are, like the vale of 
Cleveland, based on red marl and lias shale ; and the oolitic rocks of 
Cleeve and Broadway are represented, though with great variations, by 
the rocks of the corresponding escarpments in Yorkshire. 
Including that portion of the vale of Cleveland which is based on 
the lias formation, this division contains about five hundred and fifty 
square miles. On the south, it is bounded by the elevated edge of 
oolitic rocks, which range, nearly in a straight line, from Scarborough 
castle to Hambleton end. (See the map.) It comprehends the whole 
drainage of the river Esk, and on the north of that river forms an 
imperfectly connected range of hills, from near Whitby to Rosebury 
Topping, with detached secondary elevations on the northern coast, at 
Rockcliff, Huntcliff, and Eston Nab. According to Col. Mudge, the 
heights on this range are as follow : Rosebury Topping, one thousand 
and twenty-two feet ; Eston Nab, seven hundred and eighty-four feet ; 
Danby Beacon, nine hundred and sixty-six feet; Easington Heights, 
six hundred and eighty-one feet. The Esk flows nearly along the line 
of a great dislocation, by which the strata on the north of the valley are 
much depressed. It is on the south of this river that we find the most 
elevated and extensive moorlands. From the cliff at the High Peak, 
near Robin Hood’s Bay, six hundred feet, a range rises and ex- 
tends westward by Stow Brow, eight hundred feet, Lilhowe Cross, one 
thousand feet, Egton moors, and Loose Hoe, fourteen hundred and four 
feet, to Burton Head, fourteen hundred and eighty-five feet. This is 
supposed to be the highest point of land in the eastern part of the 
county, but the ridges are still very lofty which pass by Wainstones, 
about thirteen hundred feet, and Carlton Bank, round the head of 
Scugdale, and by Osmotherly moors, to sink beneath the highest point 
