On the Divisions of the Glacial Beds in Filey Bay

Abstract

Upon examination, the interesting, but hitherto neglected, drifts which fill the old preglacial hollow between Filey and Speeton are found to comprise in their sections a fuller series than is elsewhere to be seen in East Yorkshire, instead of all being included, as was supposed by Messrs. Wood and Rome, in but one division of their glacial series, that to which they have given the name of “Purple Clay without Chalk.”* So long ago as 1868, Professor Phillips,† in a short paper on the Hessle drift, pointed out that it was probable there were really two, or even three, boulder clays north of Flambro’; and, in a more recent paper, Mr. S. V. Wood‡ remarks that he and his colleague, the Rev. J. L. Rome, subsequent to the publication of their joint paper, traced the Hessle clay to the borders of Durham, though this does not seem to refer to the coast section. So far from these drifts, then, being without division, we shall see that they may be clearly separated into even more than the three clays suggested by Professor Phillips, the divisions thus obtained being clearly the northern representatives of the clays seen in Holderness. It is not, indeed, strictly necessary to suppose that each of the dividing lines which can be traced in these drifts marks a long “interglacial period.” Whether they do or not is a matter of theory; but they are worthy of attention, even if looked upon simply as forming good lines of division, …