The Comparative Geology of Hotham, Near South Cave, Yorkshire

Abstract

Hotham is a small village between the towns of South Cave and Market Weighton, in the East Biding of Yorkshire, situated upon the Lower Lias formation, about five miles above where that zone crosses the Humber at Whitton and Brough.Several interesting rooks of the secondary series pass by this village, generally in bands of inconsiderable thickness, and in a direction nearly N.W.N. In most other districts widely separated, they can here be examined near a single point; for we can walk in about two miles from the New Red Sandstone, across the Lias and Oolite, to the top of the Chalk. And as these rocks are, in part, little known, and, in part, have been long held to be exceptional and peculiar—moreover, as they seem to me to throw light upon questions not quite settled at the present time—such as the existence of the Bone-Bed and Insect-Bed, at the base of the Yorkshire Lias, and of the Inferior Oolite in the long litigated neighbourhood of Cave—I am induced to offer some observations upon them, which I made at Hotham during two very short vacations, and which, I trust, will be found to be of general, as well as of local interest. The purpose of this paper will be, to compare some of the most important formations occurring near Hotham with the same formations as they are more typically represented, and more familiarly known, in other parts of England.