At the extremity of a pretty bay, on the coast of Yorkshire, stands the town of Whitby, known to every geologist for the numerous treasures of organic remains which the Lias beds, there outcropping on the shore, have furnished at various times.

Nor is Whitby wanting in historical associations. It was there, in Anglo-Saxon days, stood the far-famed monastery of Streones-healh, of which St. Hilda, the relative of Northumbria's powerful monarch, Edwin, was the abbess. It was there the famous council was held to decide the keeping of Easter (A.D., 664); it was on those rugged shores of the North Sea that the early stand was made by Colman on behalf of the native religion against the then increasing dominion of the Romish Church. It was there reposed the remains of Edwin, Oswy, Aelfleda, and of the Saxon Hilda herself. Associated with its monastic rule were many of the famous men of the olden times—Bosa, Aetla, Oftfor, Wilfred, and Cædmon, to whom Bede says sublime strains of poetry were so natural that he dreamed in verse, and composed in sleep that which he penned on awaking. And the history of Whitby is pleasingly associated with its geology by the legend of its saint.