When we endeavour to analyse the power of attraction exerted by the
Wolds, we find it to exist in the sweeping outlines of the land with
scarcely a house to be seen for many miles, in the purity of the air
owing to the absence of smoke, in the brilliance of the sunlight due to
the whiteness of the roads and fields, and in the wonderful breezes
that for ever blow across pasture, stubble, and roots.
Above the eastern side of the valley, where the Derwent takes its deep
and sinuous course towards the alluvial lands, the chalk first makes
its appearance in the neighbourhood of Acklam, and farther north at
Wharram-le-Street, where picturesque hollows with precipitous sides
break up the edge of the cretaceous deposits. Eastwards the high
country, scarred here and there with gleaming chalk-pits, and netted
with roads of almost equal whiteness, continues to the great headland
of Flamborough, where the sea frets and fumes all the summer, and
lacerates the cliffs during the stormy months. The masses of flinty
chalk have shown themselves so capable of resisting the erosion of the
sea that the seaward termination of the Wolds has for many centuries
been becoming more and more a pronounced feature of the east coast of
England, and if the present rate of encroachment along the low shores
of Holderness is continued, this accentuation will become still more
conspicuous.
Pages:
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195