34 
OWTHORNE. 
the pebbly diluvial clay, we find some blue lacustrine clay, containing 
small specimens of Anodon anatinus ; above this, lies a vast quantity of 
peaty matter, full of hazel nuts and branches of trees ; more rarely the 
bones of terrestrial animals occur, especially of the stag. Specimens of 
these interesting remains have been presented to the Museum of the 
Yorkshire Philosophical Society, by the Rev. C. Sykes, Mr. Salmond, and 
Mr. Backhouse. This deposit ends towards the north, near the little pro- 
jecting cliff which is all that remains of the church-yard of Owthorne ; 
the church having been some time washed away, and the church-yard 
so rapidly wasted that all the gravestones have been removed. The 
buried bones of former generations, which are seen projecting from the 
crumbling cliff, have a singular appearance, and, combined with the 
falling of the cliff and the roar of the destroying waves, fill the contem- 
plative mind with solemn and awful reflections. Between Owthorne and 
Sandley mere, the cliff attains an elevation of thirty-five feet, and is 
composed of brown and blue clay, with pebbles scattered through it. 
Two hundred yards south of Sandley mere, is a layer of gravel in the 
clay, which produces a copious spring. (F.) Wells sunk in the diluvial 
tracts of Holderness, seldom fail to produce water when they touch a 
bed of gravel. 
Sandley mere, as its name implies, was formerly a lake ; it is now a 
reedy flat, protected from the sea by only a broad beach of sand and 
pebbles, thrown up by the tide. Sometimes a swelling tide rushes over 
this unsettled barrier, enters the ancient mere, and would flow down the 
marshy level of the Keyingliam drainage, by Rooss and Ridgemont, to 
the Humber, but for an artificial bank constructed under the mamme- 
ment of the commissioners of sewers. As at Owthorne, the sea now 
flows over a part of the ancient bed of Sandley mere, and covers with 
sand much of its clay and peat. In this lacustrine formation, the bones 
of oxen and deer, with horns of the stag, &c. have been at different 
times discovered. The diluvial clay cliffs also furnish teeth of the 
elephant, in considerable plenty ; which, being commonly picked up on 
the sand, are more or less worn by friction among the pebbles. It is 
remaikable that no other parts of the skeleton are found here. 
