Remarks on the Extinct Fauna of the East Riding of Yorkshire

Abstract

In that part of the western boundary of the German Ocean between Flamborough Head and Spurn Point, is situated a tract of low land called Holderness, which, in early times, exhibited the alternate appearance of morass and lake, as the river Hull overflowed or subsided in its progress to the Humber. Trees and shrubs sprung up in the uncultivated land, and, spreading by degrees, formed large forests, which, confining the exhalations of the soil and obstructing the course of streams, caused the rivers to overflow, and stagnate into lakes and marshes. A great many of the marshes and the woods of Deira remained at the time of the Domesday survey, for its waters were “so abundant as to afford a fishery of 70,000 eels, and wood pastures eleven miles long and three miles broad.” Most of the towns within the area here spoken of are, like the land, wet and damp. Woodmansea, near Beverley, and Rotsea, near Watton, bespeak the existence of meres in those places. Indeed, Watton—Saxon Wetadun —signifies a wet town , describing its situation as surrounded with waters and marshes. Skipsea , Withern sea, and Kiln sea indicate that a mere has existed in each of these places, as there is yet at Horn sea. The termination sea (or sey, as it is occasionally spelt) is not the modern word denoting the ocean, but is nearly synonymous with mere. From the above remarks, it will be evident that the physical geography of the district, diversified as it appears to to have ...