HOLDERNESS. 
17 
ton ; and, at all these places, the chalk sinks below the wide diluvial and 
alluvial plains of Holderness. The extent of surface occupied by the chalk 
formation of the wolds is about three hundred and seventy-six square 
miles, and the thickness of the stratum not less than five hundred feet. 
Throughout its whole course its mineral characters are much alike ; and 
its fossil remains nearly identical : yet, as the beds are more completely 
exposed on the sea-coast, it is from Bridlington and Flamborough that 
most fossils are procured. The rock is genei'ally much harder than 
in the southern counties, and the layers of flint are more diffused through 
its substance. On the western slopes of the wolds, as about Bishop- 
Wilton and Brantingham, the lower portion of the chalk is softer than the 
upper part, and apparently more argillaceous; it seems to correspond 
with the chalk marl of Oxfordshire, but no fossils have been collected 
from it. At the bottom are red layers, containing small belemnites 
(B. Listeri) and terebratulce, which do not occur above. The blue clay 
of Speeton ends abruptly under the chalk, without any traces of gradual 
change. 
In wells and pits sunk on the wolds, the chalk has been several times 
perforated, and found to rest on Kimmeridge clay, near Sherburn, and on 
lias, containing characteristic fossils, (of which specimens have been pre- 
sented to the Yorkshire Philosophical Society by the Rev. T. Rankin,) 
at Huggate. The latter fact is highly important, as it shews to what an 
extent the unconformed arrangement prevails under the central part of 
the wolds. 
HOLDERNESS. 
Hoi.beuness, taken as a natural division, may be said to include 
the whole country lying between the eastern slope of the Yorkshire 
wolds, the German ocean, and the channel of the Humber. Its 
western limit passes by Bridlington, Burton-Agnes, Driffield, Beswick, 
Beverley, and Cottingham, to Hessle ; what may have been anciently its 
extent towards the east and south-east, is not easily determined, because 
D 
