THE MOORLAND DISTRICT. 
9 
the lower and middle parts of the cliff from Cloughton Wyke to the 
High Peak. They appear on all the higher parts of the coast, from 
Robin Hood’s Bay to Huntcliff; and thence, retiring inland, cap all 
the high Cleveland hills before mentioned. The lowest part of this 
series of rocks usually contains a considerable portion of shale, and some 
thin layers of white and yellow sandstone, with fossil plants and irregular 
seams of bad coal. Occasionally, this part swells out to a great thickness, 
and encloses two very distinct layers of fossil plants : those which lie 
nearest to the dogger consist of cycadiform fronds and ferns of different 
kinds, and are imbedded in white carbonaceous sandstone and shale, or 
in ironstone. The upper layer consists of only one kind of equisetiform 
plants, standing vertically, as if in the attitude of growth, in a bed of 
sandstone, which rests on shale. A considerable thickness of sandstones 
and shales covers these plants at High Whitby and in Stainton-dale 
cliffs ; and further south towards Cloughton Wyke, still higher repeti- 
tions of the same kind enclose a thin seam of coal, which is there worked, 
as well as at May becks and other places on the moors. This coal seam 
occurs nearly at the top of the sandstone series, which has been thus 
shewn to enclose two distinct, though irregular, layers of coal, and at 
least two deposits of fossil plants, but no fossil shells. 
The calcareous strata, (No. 12,) now to be noticed, which lie in 
the midst of the carboniferous sandstones, are of small agricultural value, 
but of great geological importance. For, in conjunction with the dogger 
series, they afford a very ample suite of organic fossils, fully demon- 
strating the relation of these two strata to the oolite formation of Lincoln 
and Bath, with which they are actually connected by intermediate points. 
This limestone is seen in the extensive low-water scars between Gris- 
thorpe and Redcliff, at the northern point of Cayton Bay, and along 
the shore at low-water, from White Nab to near the Spa at Scarborough. 
From this point it is below tbe level of the sea, till we approach Clough- 
ton Wyke; beyond which it rises along the high cliffs of Haiburn and 
Stainton-dale, to near the Peak house. Hence it recedes inland, encircles 
the v allies which descend to Robin Hood’s Bay, and passes by Hawsker, 
to Maybecks on the Sneaton moors. It occurs again in Commondale, 
c 
