DESCRIPTION OF THE COAST. 
72 
one hundred feet. It encloses nodules of ironstone in rather distant 
layers, and many fossils, as belemnites, plicatulae, pectines, gryphaeas, 
wood, &c. : from this height it sinks down to almost the level of the sea, 
at the Loftliouse boiling-houses, and so continues across the bay at Skin- 
ningrave, but further on it ascends, and in the loftiest point of Huntcliff 
seems to be one hundred and eighty feet above high-water. It falls 
again towards Saltburn, and terminates against the diluvial cliffs there at 
an altitude of about fifty feet. It appears, then, that nowhere on this 
part of the coast is the lower shale disclosed in greater thickness than two 
hundred feet, whereas, in consequence of the great fault at the Peak, 
three hundred feet are there seen in the cliff. Toward Staithes the low- 
water scars of this shale are rendered interesting by the singular appear- 
ance of the sandstone and ironstone masses, which look like mushrooms 
on little pedicles of shale. They have evidently protected the shale 
beneath them from wasting. 
The sandy conchiferous marlstone beds, which in Colborn nab 
cover the lower lias shale, are seen rising with it, and contributing to 
swell the altitude of Boulby and Rockcliff. The lower part of this series 
is generally the most solid, and projects in broad compact floors above 
the lias. On the surfaces of such beds lie innumerable multitudes of 
oysters, dentalia, pectens, cardium truncatum, avicula inaequivalvis, 
and, more rarely, about Staithes, * beautiful fossil star-fishes of the genus 
ophiura. The marlstone may be well examined on the shore from the 
boiling-houses of the Rock cliff works to Skinningrave, for there the 
beds come near to the level of the sea. But along the whole coast fallen 
masses of this rock abound, and will richly reward the researches of the 
industrious collector. Above lie the ironstone courses which were noticed 
on the side of Staithes harbour. These range uninterruptedly across the 
front of Boulby and Rockcliff, and again shew themselves in the highest 
part of Huntcliff. Still higher in Boulby and Rockcliff, we trace the 
soft shales and hard shales with limestone nodules, which were observed 
Mr. Miller, of Bristol, informs me that fossil specimens of ophiura have been found in the 
lias at Fretherne, in Gloucestershire 
