DESCRIPTION OP THE COAST. 
70 
hung by a broken slipped cliff, whose extreme height is about three 
hundred and twenty feet. The hard beds of shale continue to guard 
the shore. The tumuli beyond this bay appear to be three hundred and 
twenty-one feet, above high-water, whilst the cliff itself is three hundred 
and one feet, and the thickness of the sandstone series above the lias 
seventy-three feet. The upper lias shale seems to be one hundred and 
ninety feet thick, and the hard shale below about forty feet thick. 
From this place the sandstone rocks pass inland; and the other 
strata rise successively toward Staithes. The hard shale forsakes the 
base, and ascends to the summit of the cliff at the signal post, whilst 
from beneath it, first the soft shale appears, and afterwards the ironstone 
courses, in the same order as at Kettleness. A little bay not far from 
the tumuli exhibits a very pleasing scene at low-water. For then the 
ironstone courses, which there spread out from the cliff, are visible over 
a wide extent, in a series of elegant flexures corresponding to slight 
variations of their declination. They contain multitudes of terebratulas, 
pectines, belemnites, wood, &c. Beyond, they rise into the cliff, and may 
be traced towards Staithes, till their regularity is suddenly broken by 
an oblique dislocation, which causes a depression, on the north side, of 
fifteen feet. The section here exhibited consists, under the diluvial 
covering, of hard shale, soft shale, and ironstone beds, and the extent of 
the dislocation may be accurately determined. 
On arriving at Staithes, a much greater dislocation demands our 
attention. The cliffs on the opposite sides of this harbour display fine 
sections of strata ; and it is with surprise we perceive that they are quite 
dissimilar. The signal cliff on the east has a diluvial covering, and 
beneath it hard shale, irony, and rugged, with great balls of ironstone ; 
soft shale, with a remarkable sulphureous line in it ; and the ironstone 
series, consisting of layers of ironstone nodules and beds, alternating with 
shale. But in Colborn nab, on the west side, we find a diluvial covering, 
and beneath it a series of alternations of shaly and sandy beds, in some of 
which is an indescribable profusion of fossils, especially cardium trunca- 
