12 
DISTRICT OF 
Derwent. No such strata are known among the oolites, in any other 
part of England : very similar rocks occur, however, at Brora in Suther- 
land ; and M. A. Brongniart has described some of their characteristic 
plants from Scania. 
If we were to put out of consideration the shelly beds of limestone, 
which alternate with them, we should find in these carboniferous rocks, 
much resemblance to that more ancient deposit of coal, and sandstone, 
and shale, which has been expressly called the coal formation. But still 
we are furnished with the most satisfactory means of discrimination, in 
the plants which accompany the coal : for though, perhaps, one hundred 
species of fossil plants have been discovered in the west-riding coal- 
field, and not less than fifty in the sandstones and shales of the north- 
eastern coast ; it is not too bold an assertion to affirm, that no one species 
has yet been found which is common to both situations. 
THE TABULAR OOLITIC HILLS. 
These hills meet the sea-coast between Filey and Scarborough 
on the east. They rise toward the north from under the vale of 
Pickering, and terminate in a remarkable line of escarpments at 
Silpho Brow, Blakelioe Topping, Saltergate, Lestingham, Easterside, 
and Black Hambleton. From the vale of Pickering the ascent 
to them is long and gradual, but from the northern moors it is 
very short and abrupt. The altitude of the hills increases westward. 
Thus, Gristhorpe cliffs are about two hundred and seventy feet 
high ; Oliver’s mount, four hundred and ninety feet ; the heights 
above Troutbeck, six hundred and fifty feet ; above Rievaulx Abbey, 
eight hundred feet ; and at Hambleton, twelve hundred and forty-six 
feet. Even at considerable distances, the plane summits and abrupt 
terminations of these oolitic hills are very remarkable. 
From Hambleton, this range proceeds southward by Wass bank, nine 
hundred feet, and eastward by Ampleforth and Oswaldkirk bank, three 
