46 
CHALK CLIFFS. 
believe, once stood on the very brink of the precipice. A considerable 
part of this surpassing altitude is owing to an unusual thickness of dilu- 
vium which here covers the chalk. The views from this station are 
very extensive ; a long line of coast divides the area into two semicircles 
of land and water : one half the horizon is sea, and the remainder 
stretches from the heights above Robin Hood’s Bay across the moorlands 
to the oolitic hills, and then pursues the southward sweep of the wolds, 
till hills and plains are mingled in the distance. We then descend for 
about a mile to the last of the white cliffs, three hundred and eighty- 
two feet high. The range of chalk here quits the sea-coast, and proceeds 
inland by Speeton beacon, four hundred and fifty feet, above Hunmanby, 
and along the south side of the vale of Pickering, rising higher and 
higher towards the west, till it attains its extreme height near Garraby 
beacon, eight hundred and five feet above the sea. From its last high 
precipice the chalk descends along the shore by an irregular broken 
escarpment covered with diluvium, and at length its lowest layers are 
seen. These are always characterised by an admixture of red chalk 
containing the very peculiar belemnite, which Dr. Lister noticed so long 
ago, as occurring, semper in terra rubra, ferruginea .* Serpulae, small 
mocerami, and terebratulse have been found in this red chalk. 
To complete our description of the chalk cliffs, we may notice that 
the chalk rubble, which so uniformly covers the stratum on the south 
side of Flamborough head, is hardly ever seen on the north side. Caves 
abound in the northern cliff which are exposed to the full rush of the 
sea ; but not on the southern side, where the water is more calm. Or- 
ganic remains are very abundant in the upper part of the stratum be- 
tween Bridlington and the south landing-place ; but the lower and 
harder chalk contains hardly any other fossil than the inocerami. Upon 
the whole, the chalk of Yorkshire is comparatively poor in fossils. 
* For want of examining the localities which he indicates, geologists have often given the name 
belemnites Listen to a very different species, (Smith, “ Strata ident. Brickearth,” Jig. 4, and 5,) 
and assigned Lister s fossil to the gault and weald clay. 
