SCARBOROUGH CLIFF. 
57 
These beds have yielded to the same diluvial impetus. But, with these 
exceptions, the series on the coast is complete, from the top of the chalk 
to nearly the base of the lias, and junctions may be examined of all the 
adjacent strata. 
As the Oxford clay, Ivelloways rock, and cornbrash, are nowhere on 
the coast better seen than at Scarborough, and as we shall have no other 
opportunity of noticing them, till we come to treat of their organic con- 
tents, I shall take this opportunity of adding some notice of their general 
character and appearance. 
The chief reason for giving the name of Oxford clay to the gray argil- 
laceous earth of Scarborough castle-liill, is its position between the well- 
determined strata of calcareous grit and Kelloways rock ; for, indepen- 
dently of this circumstance, no particular affinity can be traced between 
the friable and rather sandy shale of Scarborough, and the tough blue 
clay of Oxford and Wiltshire ; and the fossils of both situations are yet 
but imperfectly known. It is probable, indeed, that my enumeration of 
the fossils found in this stratum at Scarborough, by Messrs. Bean, Dunn, 
Smith, and Williamson, may be found more extensive than a similar 
catalogue of those belonging to it in the south of England ; and yet only 
a few years have elapsed since it was discovered to contain any. 
The Kelloways rock agrees much better with its prototype both in 
substance and organic remains. It is, indeed, seldom that specimens of 
mixed secondary sandstones, procured from neighbouring parishes, are 
more similar than some which may be selected from this stratum in Wilt- 
shire and Yorkshire ; and so complete is the affinity of the imbedded fos- 
sils, that it might be easy for the most practised eye to mistake the one 
for the other. In Yorkshire, the Kelloways rock is a mixed sandstone, 
containing some carbonate of lime and some argillaceous particles of a 
grayish yellow colour, changing to greenish gray when wet, and to 
brownish yellow when much impregnated with oxide of iron. The 
difference in its state of consolidation is singular: in some places it 
consists of loose unaggregated sand, containing hard, irony, and cal- 
i 
