Report on the Buried Cliff at Sewerby, near Bridlington

Abstract

Introduction. During the course of my enquiries into the geology of this neighbourhood, I learnt that the tusk of an elephant had once been found in the cliff near Bridlington Quay by some fishermen, and I sought out one of the men, and questioned him as to the discovery. He told me they found the tusk in a bed of soft sand at the bottom of the cliff near where the chalk ends, about two miles east of Bridlington Harbour, opposite the village of Sewerby; but, when I came to examine the section, I could find no bed like that described, though I noticed that the chalk ended very abruptly, and also, that though the lower part of the cliff was much obscured by slipped drift, there were indications of beds between the boulder-clay and the chalk. I called attention to the discovery in a paper on “The Speeton Shell-bed” (in Geological Magazine, Dec. II., Vol. VIII., p. 174), and suggested that the remains had been obtained from some unexposed bed which underlay the boulder-clay. The lower part of the section remained masked by slips till the winter of 1883–4, when the sea cleared away much of the displaced stuff, and revealed the long-looked-for bone-bed. I was first apprised of this by one of the fishermen who had made the previous discovery, who came to tell me that there were two bones in the cliff. I examined these bones, and thought that the greater part of a skeleton might ...