432 Mr PHEAR, ON THE GEOLOGY OF SOME PARTS OF SUFFOLK, 



Gault : these different fragments, or boulders as it is usual to call them, have every variation in 

 magnitude, from five or six feet in diameter downwards; they are always much worn in appear- 

 ance, but can never be confounded with pebbles, as they are rarely very smooth, and invariably 

 exhibit at least one distinct face, meeting the other surface at small though blunted ano-les. 

 Belemnites, ammonites, gryphea, single pieces of saurian remains, and the more substantial 

 fossils, occur separately in great abundance ; and I have found a fragile star-shaped selenite 

 alone in the mass of clay ; but with these exceptions fossils are only to be looked for in the 

 boulders : these however are so plentiful, that the ordinary drains in any field of the clay 

 district, or even any small stone-heap, would go far to furnish a cabinet with specimens from 

 the secondary formation. 



The drift-gravel is coarse, very unequal in size, very heterogeneous, and generally angular ■ 

 the greater portion is flint from the chalk, and the whole perhaps may be well described by 

 saying that the first sight of it suggests the idea of its being the result of washing away the 

 above described drift-clay from its insoluble contents. Single fossils more frequently occur 

 in it than in the drift-clay, but are always much broken and worn. Tertiary remains are 

 so frequently found in gravels of this character apparently in situ (a case which I believe 

 never happens in the clay), as to point to a probable want of synchronism in the two 

 deposits. 



The sands are unfossiliferous. 



The habit of viewing this mass as a whole has in a great degree vitiated the observations 

 of local fossil collectors, which if made with careful attention to the relative positions of the 

 beds of gravel, clays, &c, would have afforded invaluable help towards the attainment of an 

 accurate knowledge of the formation ; as it is, they necessarily claim attention only to result 

 in throwing additional embarrassment upon an inquiry which is already sufficiently beset with 

 difficulties of its own : — not the least of these is the paucity of sections to be obtained ; the 

 Eastern Union Railway when being made might have been turned to good account in this way, 

 but no accurate notes of its cuttings have been preserved, and they are now far too weather- 

 worn or covered with vegetation to admit of being examined. Wells are not often sunk, brick- 

 pits are very rarely found in any but the thin diluvial clays, and the gravel, sand, and clay- 

 lump pits are too shallow to be separately of much value; the only promising cases therefore 

 are either those furnished by the occurrence of several of these pits scattered upon the flank 

 of one of the larger valleys, or by the sea-coast. Accordingly the observations mentioned in. 

 the first part of this paper will be arranged in an order following the upward course of the 

 Gipping. 



The name Gipping is given to the prolongation of the Orwell estuary ; it extends from 

 Ipswich in a N.W. direction to beyond Stowmarket, a distance of at least 12 miles, and 

 throughout its length is continually throwing out side valleys, which are again subdivided 

 into smaller branches : its transverse section exhibits flat boggy meadows, often half a mile 

 in width, terminated by rising ground which attains considerable height as it recedes. 



At Ipswich the sides approach more nearly to each other, and at the back of the town rise 

 some steep sand-hills, forming the grounds of Christ-Church park and Brook's Hall: Stoke hills, 

 also sand, are opposite to these, and are traversed by a tunnel of the Eastern Union Railway. 



